Maybe Chinese civilization was (unintentionally) on the right path: discourage or at least don’t encourage technological innovation but don’t stop it completely, run a de facto eugenics program (Keju, or Imperial Examination System) to slowly improve human intelligence, and centralize control over governance and culture to prevent drift from these policies. If the West hadn’t jumped the gun with its Industrial Revolution, by the time China got to AI, human intelligence would be a lot higher and we might be in a much better position to solve alignment.
This was inspired by @dsj’s complaint about centralization, using the example of it being impossible for a centralized power or authority to deal with the Industrial Revolution in a positive way. The contrarian in my mind piped up with “Maybe the problem isn’t with centralization, but with the Industrial Revolution!” If the world had more centralization, such that the Industrial Revolution never started in an uncontrolled way, perhaps it would have been better off in the long run.
One unknown is what would the trajectory of philosophical progress look like in this centralized world, compared to a more decentralized world like ours. The West seems to have better philosophy than China, but it’s not universal (e.g. analytical vs Continental philosophy). (Actually “not universal” is a big understatement given how little attention most people pay to good philosophy, aside from a few exceptional bubbles like LW.) Presumably in the centralized world there is a strong incentive to stifle philosophical progress (similar to China historically), for the sake of stability, but what happens when average human IQ reaches 150 or 200?
What motive does a centralized dominant power have to allow any progress?
A culture/ideology that says the ruler is supposed to be benevolent and try to improve their subjects’ lives, which of course was not literally followed, but would make it hard to fully suppress things that could clearly make people’s lives better, like many kinds of technological progress. And historically, AFAIK few if any of the Chinese emperors tried to directly suppress technological innovation, they just didn’t encourage it like the West did, through things like patent laws and scientific institutions.
The entire world would likely look more like North Korea.
Yes, directionally it would look more like North Korea, but I think the controls would not have to be as total or harsh, because there is less of a threat that outside ideas could rush in and overturn the existing culture/ideology the moment you let your guard down.
I don’t think patent laws are the key difference other property rights are more important.
Gutenberg was living in a free city and was able to take a loan to start a startup with 15-25 employees on the promise of an unproven technology without any patent laws protecting him. Merchants were strong enough at the time so that idea of creating a startup with the main motivation of financial return was viable.
Chinese rulers could just take whatever they wanted from merchants, so merchants were less powerful and did not make similar capital investments. When Europeans sailed across the oceans, they did it because the ability to make a profit from trade. When Chinese did it, they wanted to bring home gifts to the emperor.
The key difference is that European merchants could make very expensive capital investments that then produced returns and reinvest those returns to produce even more value.
Which period of “chinese civilisation” are you referring to? I think it would be hard to point to any isolated “chinese civilisation” just minding its own business and keeping a firm grip on a unified cultural and ethnic population. Over 3500+ years of written history the territory occupied by China today had multiple periods of unity and division, sometimes splitting up into 10 or more states, often with multiple empires and dynasties coexisting in various levels of war and peace and very loosely ruled areas in between. (This is IMO a central theme of Chinese history: the first line of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms reads “Of matters under heaven, we can say that what is long united must divide, what is long divided must unite”. At various points the “Chinese Empire” looked more like the Holy Roman Empire, e.g. during the late Zhou dynasty leading into the Spring and Autumn period)
The “chinese lands” were taken over by the Mongols and the Manchu during the Yuan and Qing dynasties (the latter one being the last dynasty before the 20th century), and at various points the borders of the Chinese empire would grow and shrink to encompass what we today recognise as Korea, Japan, South East Asia, Tibet… There are 56 recognised ethnic groups in China today. The importance and purpose of the Keju system also changed throughout the periods it was in use, and I have no idea where you got the eugenics thing from. I also think you would have a hard time building a case for any intentional or centralised control of scientific research beyond that of the European states at the time, mostly because the idea of scientific research is itself a very modern one (is alchemical research science?). As far as I can understand it you’re taking the “vibe” of a strong, unified, centralised state that people recognise today in the People’s Republic of China and then stretching it backwards to create some kind of artificial historical throughline.
(The following is written by AI (Gemini 2.5 Pro) but I think it correctly captured my position.)
You’re right to point out that I’m using a highly stylized and simplified model of “Chinese civilization.” The reality, with its dynastic cycles, periods of division, and foreign rule, was far messier and more brutal than my short comment could convey.
My point, however, isn’t about a specific, unbroken political entity. It’s about a civilizational attractor state. The remarkable thing about the system described in “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” is not that it fell apart, but that it repeatedly put itself back together into a centralized, bureaucratic, agrarian empire, whereas post-Roman Europe fragmented permanently. Even foreign conquerors like the Manchus were largely assimilated by this system, adopting its institutions and governing philosophy (the “sinicization” thesis).
Regarding the Keju, the argument isn’t for intentional eugenics, but a de facto one. The mechanism is simple: if (1) success in the exams correlates with heritable intelligence, and (2) success confers immense wealth and reproductive opportunity (e.g., supporting multiple wives and children who survive to adulthood), then over a millennium you have created a powerful, systematic selective pressure for those traits.
The core of the thought experiment remains: is a civilization that structurally, even if unintentionally, prioritizes stability and slow biological enhancement over rapid, disruptive technological innovation better positioned to handle long-term existential risks?
It’s based on the idea that Keju created a long-term selective pressure for intelligence.
The exams selected for heritable cognitive traits.
Success led to positions in the imperial government, and therefore power and wealth.
Power and wealth allowed for more wives, concubines, food, resources, and many more surviving children than the average person, which was something many Chinese consciously aimed for. (Note that this is very different from today’s China or the West, where cultural drift/evolution has much reduced or completely eliminated people’s desires to translate wealth into more offspring.)
Presumably in the centralized world there is a strong incentive to stifle philosophical progress (similar to China historically), for the sake of stability
But would they be at all threatened by analytic philosophy, brewing patiently in its corner as an amusement of sensible people?
Maybe Chinese civilization was (unintentionally) on the right path: discourage or at least don’t encourage technological innovation but don’t stop it completely, run a de facto eugenics program (Keju, or Imperial Examination System) to slowly improve human intelligence, and centralize control over governance and culture to prevent drift from these policies. If the West hadn’t jumped the gun with its Industrial Revolution, by the time China got to AI, human intelligence would be a lot higher and we might be in a much better position to solve alignment.
This was inspired by @dsj’s complaint about centralization, using the example of it being impossible for a centralized power or authority to deal with the Industrial Revolution in a positive way. The contrarian in my mind piped up with “Maybe the problem isn’t with centralization, but with the Industrial Revolution!” If the world had more centralization, such that the Industrial Revolution never started in an uncontrolled way, perhaps it would have been better off in the long run.
One unknown is what would the trajectory of philosophical progress look like in this centralized world, compared to a more decentralized world like ours. The West seems to have better philosophy than China, but it’s not universal (e.g. analytical vs Continental philosophy). (Actually “not universal” is a big understatement given how little attention most people pay to good philosophy, aside from a few exceptional bubbles like LW.) Presumably in the centralized world there is a strong incentive to stifle philosophical progress (similar to China historically), for the sake of stability, but what happens when average human IQ reaches 150 or 200?
What motive does a centralized dominant power have to allow any progress? The entire world would likely look more like North Korea.
A culture/ideology that says the ruler is supposed to be benevolent and try to improve their subjects’ lives, which of course was not literally followed, but would make it hard to fully suppress things that could clearly make people’s lives better, like many kinds of technological progress. And historically, AFAIK few if any of the Chinese emperors tried to directly suppress technological innovation, they just didn’t encourage it like the West did, through things like patent laws and scientific institutions.
Yes, directionally it would look more like North Korea, but I think the controls would not have to be as total or harsh, because there is less of a threat that outside ideas could rush in and overturn the existing culture/ideology the moment you let your guard down.
I don’t think patent laws are the key difference other property rights are more important.
Gutenberg was living in a free city and was able to take a loan to start a startup with 15-25 employees on the promise of an unproven technology without any patent laws protecting him. Merchants were strong enough at the time so that idea of creating a startup with the main motivation of financial return was viable.
Chinese rulers could just take whatever they wanted from merchants, so merchants were less powerful and did not make similar capital investments. When Europeans sailed across the oceans, they did it because the ability to make a profit from trade. When Chinese did it, they wanted to bring home gifts to the emperor.
The key difference is that European merchants could make very expensive capital investments that then produced returns and reinvest those returns to produce even more value.
Which period of “chinese civilisation” are you referring to? I think it would be hard to point to any isolated “chinese civilisation” just minding its own business and keeping a firm grip on a unified cultural and ethnic population. Over 3500+ years of written history the territory occupied by China today had multiple periods of unity and division, sometimes splitting up into 10 or more states, often with multiple empires and dynasties coexisting in various levels of war and peace and very loosely ruled areas in between. (This is IMO a central theme of Chinese history: the first line of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms reads “Of matters under heaven, we can say that what is long united must divide, what is long divided must unite”. At various points the “Chinese Empire” looked more like the Holy Roman Empire, e.g. during the late Zhou dynasty leading into the Spring and Autumn period)
The “chinese lands” were taken over by the Mongols and the Manchu during the Yuan and Qing dynasties (the latter one being the last dynasty before the 20th century), and at various points the borders of the Chinese empire would grow and shrink to encompass what we today recognise as Korea, Japan, South East Asia, Tibet… There are 56 recognised ethnic groups in China today. The importance and purpose of the Keju system also changed throughout the periods it was in use, and I have no idea where you got the eugenics thing from. I also think you would have a hard time building a case for any intentional or centralised control of scientific research beyond that of the European states at the time, mostly because the idea of scientific research is itself a very modern one (is alchemical research science?). As far as I can understand it you’re taking the “vibe” of a strong, unified, centralised state that people recognise today in the People’s Republic of China and then stretching it backwards to create some kind of artificial historical throughline.
(The following is written by AI (Gemini 2.5 Pro) but I think it correctly captured my position.)
You’re right to point out that I’m using a highly stylized and simplified model of “Chinese civilization.” The reality, with its dynastic cycles, periods of division, and foreign rule, was far messier and more brutal than my short comment could convey.
My point, however, isn’t about a specific, unbroken political entity. It’s about a civilizational attractor state. The remarkable thing about the system described in “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” is not that it fell apart, but that it repeatedly put itself back together into a centralized, bureaucratic, agrarian empire, whereas post-Roman Europe fragmented permanently. Even foreign conquerors like the Manchus were largely assimilated by this system, adopting its institutions and governing philosophy (the “sinicization” thesis).
Regarding the Keju, the argument isn’t for intentional eugenics, but a de facto one. The mechanism is simple: if (1) success in the exams correlates with heritable intelligence, and (2) success confers immense wealth and reproductive opportunity (e.g., supporting multiple wives and children who survive to adulthood), then over a millennium you have created a powerful, systematic selective pressure for those traits.
The core of the thought experiment remains: is a civilization that structurally, even if unintentionally, prioritizes stability and slow biological enhancement over rapid, disruptive technological innovation better positioned to handle long-term existential risks?
Say more about the de-facto eugenics program?
It’s based on the idea that Keju created a long-term selective pressure for intelligence.
The exams selected for heritable cognitive traits.
Success led to positions in the imperial government, and therefore power and wealth.
Power and wealth allowed for more wives, concubines, food, resources, and many more surviving children than the average person, which was something many Chinese consciously aimed for. (Note that this is very different from today’s China or the West, where cultural drift/evolution has much reduced or completely eliminated people’s desires to translate wealth into more offspring.)
If we made “spend money on kids” cool again, do you think we automatically get selection-for-intelligence for free, or is there another missing bit?
There would likely be some selection process, but that would be very slow compared to all the other factors at play.
But would they be at all threatened by analytic philosophy, brewing patiently in its corner as an amusement of sensible people?