One thing you quickly learn from reading history is that at least sometimes, history balances on a knife’s edge. Small mistakes or lucky accidents by a few people often decide the fate of the entire known world. Who knows what would have happened if Vasily Arkhipov wasn’t on the right submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis? It’s believed that the captain and political officer wanted to launch the nuclear torpedoes but his presence on the submarine and higher rank allowed him veto it.
People should realize that the future of life on Earth probably balances on a few small things, and if only you knew what they were you could change so much, but it’s so very hard to know.
Bias
Another thing is that people aren’t selfish, people are biased.
Businesses seem to be shockingly shortsighted. Some AI labs are spending everything to race ahead and forgetting about safety despite so many employees pleading about safety.
Communists observing the shortsightedness of businesses were quoted saying “the capitalists will sell us the rope we hang them with.”
Businesspeople are not willing to destroy everything just to temporarily make an extra dollar—no human thinks like that!
Instead, businesspeople are very smart and strategic but extraordinarily biased into thinking whatever keeps their business going or growing must be good for the people.
Think about Stalin being very smart and strategic but extraordinarily biased into thinking whatever keeps him in power must be good for the people. It’s not selfishness! If Stalin (or any dictator) were selfish, they would quickly retire and live the most comfortable retirements imaginable.
Communists and capitalists are two sides of the same coin /s
Humans evolved to be the most altruistic beings ever with barely a drop of selfishness. Our selfish genes makes us altruistic (as soon as power is within reach) because there’s a thin line between “the best way to help others” and “amassing power at all costs.” These two things look similar due to instrumental convergence, and it only takes a little bit of bias/delusion to make the former behave identically to the latter.
As a dictator, it’s pretty hard to retire because your people might lynch you.
Some of them maybe would want to retire, but they’ve committed too many crimes, and their friends are too dependent on the crimes continuing to be committed to be able to stop being a dictator.
I really doubt the causality here is “thinking being in power is good for the people” → “wanting to stay in power” and not the other way around.
I think the causality is “selfish genes optimizing for whatever behaviour leads to power” → “hidden biases making you think that you being in power very good for the people” → “wanting to stay in power.”
Dictators start off as normal people
If you learn about dictators and people who did horrible things with power, you’ll find out that they are scarily high amount of humanity.
Consider Ali Khamenei, the dictator of Iran. His favorite books were Les Misérables, and The Grapes of Wrath. These are the kind of deep meaningful novels which, to someone with low empathy, would probably be too boring to read.
Before the revolution, before he rose to power, you would probably see him as an innocent activist who was wrongly imprisoned by the previous dictator.
And maybe he was just an innocent activist.
Power corrupts, you start off good person but become evil.
Power corrupts insidiously
But somehow nobody, and I mean nobody, ever sees this coming. No one ever realizes “wow I feel a strong craving for power, maybe I’m becoming evil.” That never happens.
The mechanism of how power corrupts you is so insidious that no one ever sees it working on them.
The Ring of Power in real life is so insidious it convinces you that it’s not dangerous at all. “Only people who are bad to begin with will be affected by me. Surely, you are not such a person!”
“You know yourself, you want to do good! You don’t feel any urge to seek power, you only feel an honest wish to help others. You just need to do a few necessary evils to prevent “them,” the truly evil people, from gaining power (the Ring of Power) and replacing you.”
Dictators don’t want to retire
I admit it’s not easy for a dictator to retire, but my only point was that they don’t want to retire. If they actually wanted to retire, we’d surely see it a lot more. They could negotiate with other countries to give them a good retirement if they make their country democratic.
Among all the dictators who did allow democratization, very few suffered consequences for it. Chun Doo-hwan is the only example I can find, and he was pardoned after one year.
One thing you quickly learn from reading history is that at least sometimes, history balances on a knife’s edge. Small mistakes or lucky accidents by a few people often decide the fate of the entire known world. Who knows what would have happened if Vasily Arkhipov wasn’t on the right submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis? It’s believed that the captain and political officer wanted to launch the nuclear torpedoes but his presence on the submarine and higher rank allowed him veto it.
People should realize that the future of life on Earth probably balances on a few small things, and if only you knew what they were you could change so much, but it’s so very hard to know.
Bias
Another thing is that people aren’t selfish, people are biased.
Businesses seem to be shockingly shortsighted. Some AI labs are spending everything to race ahead and forgetting about safety despite so many employees pleading about safety.
Communists observing the shortsightedness of businesses were quoted saying “the capitalists will sell us the rope we hang them with.”
Businesspeople are not willing to destroy everything just to temporarily make an extra dollar—no human thinks like that!
Instead, businesspeople are very smart and strategic but extraordinarily biased into thinking whatever keeps their business going or growing must be good for the people.
Think about Stalin being very smart and strategic but extraordinarily biased into thinking whatever keeps him in power must be good for the people. It’s not selfishness! If Stalin (or any dictator) were selfish, they would quickly retire and live the most comfortable retirements imaginable.
Communists and capitalists are two sides of the same coin /s
Humans evolved to be the most altruistic beings ever with barely a drop of selfishness. Our selfish genes makes us altruistic (as soon as power is within reach) because there’s a thin line between “the best way to help others” and “amassing power at all costs.” These two things look similar due to instrumental convergence, and it only takes a little bit of bias/delusion to make the former behave identically to the latter.
As a dictator, it’s pretty hard to retire because your people might lynch you.
Some of them maybe would want to retire, but they’ve committed too many crimes, and their friends are too dependent on the crimes continuing to be committed to be able to stop being a dictator.
I really doubt the causality here is “thinking being in power is good for the people” → “wanting to stay in power” and not the other way around.
I think the causality is “selfish genes optimizing for whatever behaviour leads to power” → “hidden biases making you think that you being in power very good for the people” → “wanting to stay in power.”
Dictators start off as normal people
If you learn about dictators and people who did horrible things with power, you’ll find out that they are scarily high amount of humanity.
Consider Ali Khamenei, the dictator of Iran. His favorite books were Les Misérables, and The Grapes of Wrath. These are the kind of deep meaningful novels which, to someone with low empathy, would probably be too boring to read.
Before the revolution, before he rose to power, you would probably see him as an innocent activist who was wrongly imprisoned by the previous dictator.
And maybe he was just an innocent activist.
Power corrupts, you start off good person but become evil.
Power corrupts insidiously
But somehow nobody, and I mean nobody, ever sees this coming. No one ever realizes “wow I feel a strong craving for power, maybe I’m becoming evil.” That never happens.
The mechanism of how power corrupts you is so insidious that no one ever sees it working on them.
The Ring of Power in real life is so insidious it convinces you that it’s not dangerous at all. “Only people who are bad to begin with will be affected by me. Surely, you are not such a person!”
“You know yourself, you want to do good! You don’t feel any urge to seek power, you only feel an honest wish to help others. You just need to do a few necessary evils to prevent “them,” the truly evil people, from gaining power (the Ring of Power) and replacing you.”
Dictators don’t want to retire
I admit it’s not easy for a dictator to retire, but my only point was that they don’t want to retire. If they actually wanted to retire, we’d surely see it a lot more. They could negotiate with other countries to give them a good retirement if they make their country democratic.
Among all the dictators who did allow democratization, very few suffered consequences for it. Chun Doo-hwan is the only example I can find, and he was pardoned after one year.