Well, why do you think socialism is so horribly wrong? During the 20th century socialists more or less won and got what they wanted. Things like social security, govermental control over business and redistribution of wealth in general are all socialist. This all may be bad from some point of view, but it is in no way mainstream opinion.
Then, those guys whom you mention in your article called themselves communists and marxists. At most, they considered socialism as some intermediate stage for building communism. And communism went bad because it was founded on wrong assumptions about how both economy and human psychology work. So, which MIRI/Lesswrong assumptions can be wrong and cause a lot of harm? Well, here are some examples.
1) Building FAI is possible, and there is a reliable way to tell if it is truly FAI before launching it. Result if wrong: paperclips.
2) Building FAI is much more difficult than AI. Launching a random AI is civilization-level suicide. Result if this idea becomes widespread: we don’t launch any AI before civilization runs out of resources or collapses for some other reason.
3) Consciousness is sort of optional feature, intelligence can work just well without it. We can reliably say if given intelligence is a person. In other words, real world works the same way as in Peter Watts “Blindsight”. Results if wrong: many, among them classic sci-fi AI rebellion.
4) Subscribing for cryonics is generally a good idea. Result if widespread: these costs significantly contribute to worldwide economic collapse.
4) Subscribing for cryonics is generally a good idea. Result if widespread: these costs significantly contribute to worldwide economic collapse.
Under the assumption that cryonics patients will never be unfrozen, cryonics has two effects. Firstly, resources are spent on freezing people, keeping them frozen and researching how to improve cryonics. There may be fringe benefits to this (for example, researching how to freeze people more efficiently might lead to improvements in cold chains, which would be pretty snazzy). There would certainly be real resource wastage.
The second effect is in increasing the rate of circulation of the currency; freezing corpses that will never be revived is pretty close to burying money, as Keynes suggested. Widespread, sustained cryonic freezing would certainly have stimulatory, and thus inflationary, effects; I would anticipate a slightly higher inflation rate and an ambiguous effect on economic growth. The effects would be very small, however, as cryonics is relatively cheap and would presumably grow cheaper. The average US household wastes far more money and real resources by not recycling or closing curtains and by allowing food to spoil.
Firstly, resources are spent on freezing people, keeping them frozen and researching how to improve cryonics. There may be fringe benefits to this (for example, researching how to freeze people more efficiently might lead to improvements in cold chains, which would be pretty snazzy). There would certainly be real resource wastage.
How does this connect with the funding process of cryonics? When someone signs up and buys life insurance, they are eliminating consumption during their lifetime of the premiums and in effect investing it in the wider economy via the insurance company’s investment in bonds etc; when they die and the insurance is cashed in for cryonics, some of it gets used on the process itself, but a lot goes into the trust fund where again it is invested in the wider economy. The trust fund uses the return for expenses like liquid nitrogen but it’s supposed to be using only part of the return (so the endowment builds up and there’s protection against disasters) and in any case, society’s gain from the extra investment should exceed the fund’s return (since why would anyone offer the fund investments on which they would take a loss and overpay the fund?). And this gain ought to compound over the long run.
So it seems to me that the main effect of cryonics on the economy is to increase long-term growth.
Money circulates more when used for short-term consumption, than long-term investment, no? So I’d expect a shift from the former to the latter to slow economic growth.
Economic activity, i.e. positive-sum trades, are what generate economic output (that and direct labour). Investment and consumption demand can both lead to economic activity. AIUI the available evidence is that with the current economy a marginal dollar will produce a greater increase in economic activity in consumption than in investment.
I think you are failing to make a crucial distinction: positive-sum trades do not generate economic activity, they are economic activity. Investment generates future opportunities for such trades.
Can you define either one without reference to value judgements? If not, I suggest you make explicit the value judgement involved in saying that we currently have underconsumption.
Yes, due to those being standard terms in economics. Overinvestment occurs when investment is poorly allocated due to overly-cheap credit and is a key concept of the Austrian school. Underconsumption is the key concept of Keynesian economics and the economic views of every non-idiot since Keynes; even Friedman openly declared that “we are all Keynesians now”. Keynesian thought, which centres on the possibility of prolonged deficient demand (like what caused the recession), wasn’t wrong, it was incomplete; the reason fine-tuning by demand management doesn’t work simply wasn’t known until we had the concept of the vertical long-run Phillips curve. Both of these ideas are currently being taught to first-year undergraduates.
Well, why do you think socialism is so horribly wrong? During the 20th century socialists more or less won and got what they wanted. Things like social security, govermental control over business and redistribution of wealth in general are all socialist. This all may be bad from some point of view, but it is in no way mainstream opinion.
Then, those guys whom you mention in your article called themselves communists and marxists. At most, they considered socialism as some intermediate stage for building communism. And communism went bad because it was founded on wrong assumptions about how both economy and human psychology work. So, which MIRI/Lesswrong assumptions can be wrong and cause a lot of harm? Well, here are some examples.
1) Building FAI is possible, and there is a reliable way to tell if it is truly FAI before launching it. Result if wrong: paperclips.
2) Building FAI is much more difficult than AI. Launching a random AI is civilization-level suicide. Result if this idea becomes widespread: we don’t launch any AI before civilization runs out of resources or collapses for some other reason.
3) Consciousness is sort of optional feature, intelligence can work just well without it. We can reliably say if given intelligence is a person. In other words, real world works the same way as in Peter Watts “Blindsight”. Results if wrong: many, among them classic sci-fi AI rebellion.
4) Subscribing for cryonics is generally a good idea. Result if widespread: these costs significantly contribute to worldwide economic collapse.
Under the assumption that cryonics patients will never be unfrozen, cryonics has two effects. Firstly, resources are spent on freezing people, keeping them frozen and researching how to improve cryonics. There may be fringe benefits to this (for example, researching how to freeze people more efficiently might lead to improvements in cold chains, which would be pretty snazzy). There would certainly be real resource wastage.
The second effect is in increasing the rate of circulation of the currency; freezing corpses that will never be revived is pretty close to burying money, as Keynes suggested. Widespread, sustained cryonic freezing would certainly have stimulatory, and thus inflationary, effects; I would anticipate a slightly higher inflation rate and an ambiguous effect on economic growth. The effects would be very small, however, as cryonics is relatively cheap and would presumably grow cheaper. The average US household wastes far more money and real resources by not recycling or closing curtains and by allowing food to spoil.
How does this connect with the funding process of cryonics? When someone signs up and buys life insurance, they are eliminating consumption during their lifetime of the premiums and in effect investing it in the wider economy via the insurance company’s investment in bonds etc; when they die and the insurance is cashed in for cryonics, some of it gets used on the process itself, but a lot goes into the trust fund where again it is invested in the wider economy. The trust fund uses the return for expenses like liquid nitrogen but it’s supposed to be using only part of the return (so the endowment builds up and there’s protection against disasters) and in any case, society’s gain from the extra investment should exceed the fund’s return (since why would anyone offer the fund investments on which they would take a loss and overpay the fund?). And this gain ought to compound over the long run.
So it seems to me that the main effect of cryonics on the economy is to increase long-term growth.
Money circulates more when used for short-term consumption, than long-term investment, no? So I’d expect a shift from the former to the latter to slow economic growth.
I don’t follow. How can consumption increase economic growth when it comes at the cost of investment? Investment is what creates economic output.
Economic activity, i.e. positive-sum trades, are what generate economic output (that and direct labour). Investment and consumption demand can both lead to economic activity. AIUI the available evidence is that with the current economy a marginal dollar will produce a greater increase in economic activity in consumption than in investment.
I think you are failing to make a crucial distinction: positive-sum trades do not generate economic activity, they are economic activity. Investment generates future opportunities for such trades.
There is such a thing as overinvestment. There is also such a thing as underconsumption, which is what we have right now.
Can you define either one without reference to value judgements? If not, I suggest you make explicit the value judgement involved in saying that we currently have underconsumption.
Yes, due to those being standard terms in economics. Overinvestment occurs when investment is poorly allocated due to overly-cheap credit and is a key concept of the Austrian school. Underconsumption is the key concept of Keynesian economics and the economic views of every non-idiot since Keynes; even Friedman openly declared that “we are all Keynesians now”. Keynesian thought, which centres on the possibility of prolonged deficient demand (like what caused the recession), wasn’t wrong, it was incomplete; the reason fine-tuning by demand management doesn’t work simply wasn’t known until we had the concept of the vertical long-run Phillips curve. Both of these ideas are currently being taught to first-year undergraduates.