The polycrisis has been my primary source of novelty/intellectual stimulation for a good long while now. Excited to see people explicitly talking about it here.
With regard to the central proposition:
I think if there were A Plan to make the world visibly less broken, made out of many components which are themselves made out of components that people could join and take responsibility for, this would increase the amount of world-fixing work being done and would meaningfully decrease the brokenness of the world. Further, I think there’s a lot of Common Cause of Many Causes stuff going on here, where people active in this project are likely to passively or actively support other parts of this project / there could be an active consulting / experience transfer / etc. scene built around it.
I think this is largely sensible and true, but consider top-down implementation of such to be a pipe dream. Instead there is a kind of grassroots version where you do some combination of:
1.) Clearly state the problems that need to be worked on, and provide reasonable guidance as to where and how they might be worked on 2.) Notice what work is already being done on the problems, and who is doing it (avoid reinventing the wheel/not invented here syndrome; EA is especially guilty of this) 3.) Actively develop useful connections between 2.) 4.) Measure engagement (resource flows) and progress
And from that process I expect something like a plan to emerge—it won’t be the best possible plan, but it will be far from the worst plan, more adequate than not, and importantly it will survive contact with reality because reality was a key driver in the development of the plan.
The platform for generating the plan would need to be more-open-than-not, and should be fairly bleeding edge—incorporating prediction markets, consensus seeking (polis), eigenkarma etc
It should be a design goal that high value contributions should be noticed, no matter the source. An example of this actually happening is where Taiwan was able to respond rapidly to Covid thanks to a moderator noticing and doing due diligence on a post in the .g0v forums re: covid, and having a process in place where that information could be escalated to government.
It should also be subject to a serious amount of adversarial testing—such a platform, if successful, will influence $ flows, and thus will be a target for capture/gaming etc etc.
As it stands, we’re lacking all 4. We’re lacking a coherent map of the polycrisis[1], we’re lacking in useful+discoverable communication channels, we’re lacking meaningful 3rd party measurement.
As it stands, the barriers to entry for those wishing to engage in meaningful work in this space are absurd. If you lack the credentials and/or wealth to self-fund, then you’re effectively excluded—a problem which was created by an increasingly specialized world (And the worldview, cultural dynamics and behaviours it engenders) has gatekeepers from that same world, enforcing the same bottlenecks/selective pressures of that world on those who would try to solve the problem.
The neighbourhood is on fire, and the only people allowed to join the bucket chain are those most likely to be ignoring the fire—so very catch-22.
P.S.
I think there’s a ton of funding available in this space, specifically I think speculating on the markets informed by the kind of worldview that allows one to perceive the polycrisis has significant alpha. I think we can make much better predictions about the next 5-10 years than the market, and I don’t think most of the market is even trying to make good predictions on those timescales.
I’d be interested in talking/collaborating with anyone who either strongly agrees or disagrees with this logic.
we’re lacking all 4. We’re lacking a coherent map of the polycrisis (if anyone wants to do and/or fund a version of aisafety.world for the polycrisis, I’m interested in contributing)
Joshua Williams created an initial version of a metacrisis map and I suggested to him a couple of days ago to make the development of such a resource more open, e.g., to turn it into a Github repository.
I think there’s a ton of funding available in this space, specifically I think speculating on the markets informed by the kind of worldview that allows one to perceive the polycrisis has significant alpha. I think we can make much better predictions about the next 5-10 years than the market, and I don’t think most of the market is even trying to make good predictions on those timescales.
Do you mean that it’s possible to earn by betting long against the current market sentiment? I think this is wrong for multiple reasons, but perhaps most importantly, because the market specifically doesn’t measure how well we are faring on a lot of components of polycrisis—e.g., market would be great if all people are turned into addicted zombies. Secondly, people don’t even try to make predictions in the stock market anymore—its turned into a completely irrational valve of liquidity that is moved by Elon Musk’s tweets, narratives, and memes more than by objective factors.
I mildly prefer polycrisis because it’s less abstract. The metacrisis points toward a systems dynamic for which we have no adequate levers, whereas the polycrisis points toward the effects in the real world that we need to deal with.
I am assuming we live in a world that is going to be reshaped (or ended) by technology (probably AGI) within a few decades, and that if this fails to occur the inevitable result of the metacrisis is collapse.
I think the most impact I can have is to kick the can down the road far enough that the accelerationistas get their shot. I don’t pretend this is the world I would choose to be living in, or the horse I’d want to be betting on. It is simply my current understanding of reality.
Hence: polycrisis. Deal with the symptoms. Keep the patient alive.
1.) Clearly state the problems that need to be worked on, and provide reasonable guidance as to where and how they might be worked on 2.) Notice what work is already being done on the problems, and who is doing it (avoid reinventing the wheel/not invented here syndrome; EA is especially guilty of this) 3.) Actively develop useful connections between 2.) 4.) Measure engagement (resource flows) and progress
I posted some parts of my current visions of 1) and 2) here and here. I think these, along with the Gaia Network design that we proposed recently (the Gaia Network is not “A Plan” in its entirety, but a significant portion of it), address @Vaniver’s and @kave’s points about realism and sociological/psychological viability.
The platform for generating the plan would need to be more-open-than-not, and should be fairly bleeding edge—incorporating prediction markets, consensus seeking (polis), eigenkarma etc
I think this is a mistake to import “democracy” at the vision level. Vision is essentially a very high-level plan, a creative engineering task. These are not decided by averaging opinions. “If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.” Also, Deutsch was writing about this in “The Beginning of Infinity” in the chapter about democracy.
We should aggregate desiderata and preferences (see “Preference Aggregation as Bayesian Inference”), but not decisions (plans, engineering designs, visions). These should be created by a coherent creative entity. The same idea is evident in the design of Open Agency Architecture.
we’re lacking meaningful 3rd party measurement
If I understand correctly what you are gesturing at here, I think that some high-level agents in the Gaia Network should become a trusted gauge for the “planetary health metrics” we care about.
I think this is a mistake to import “democracy” at the vision level. Vision is essentially a very high-level plan, a creative engineering task. These are not decided by averaging opinions. “If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.” Also, Deutsch was writing about this in “The Beginning of Infinity” in the chapter about democracy.
We should aggregate desiderata and preferences (see “Preference Aggregation as Bayesian Inference”), but not decisions (plans, engineering designs, visions). These should be created by a coherent creative entity. The same idea is evident in the design of Open Agency Architecture.
Democracy is a mistake, for all of the obvious reasons. As is the belief amongst engineers that every problem is an engineering problem :P
We have a whole bunch of tools going mostly unused and unnoticed that could, plausibly, enable a great deal more trust and collaboration than is currently possible.
We have a whole bunch of people both thinking about and working on the polycrisis already.
My proposal is that we’re far more likely to achieve our ultimate goal—a future we’d like to live in—if we simply do our best to empower, rather than direct, others.
I expect attempts to direct, no matter how brilliant the plan or the mind(s) behind it, are likely to fail. For all the obvious reasons.
(caveat: yes AGI changes this, but it changes everything. My whole point is that we need to keep the ship from sinking long enough for AGI to take the wheel)
The polycrisis has been my primary source of novelty/intellectual stimulation for a good long while now. Excited to see people explicitly talking about it here.
With regard to the central proposition:
I think this is largely sensible and true, but consider top-down implementation of such to be a pipe dream.
Instead there is a kind of grassroots version where you do some combination of:
1.) Clearly state the problems that need to be worked on, and provide reasonable guidance as to where and how they might be worked on
2.) Notice what work is already being done on the problems, and who is doing it (avoid reinventing the wheel/not invented here syndrome; EA is especially guilty of this)
3.) Actively develop useful connections between 2.)
4.) Measure engagement (resource flows) and progress
And from that process I expect something like a plan to emerge—it won’t be the best possible plan, but it will be far from the worst plan, more adequate than not, and importantly it will survive contact with reality because reality was a key driver in the development of the plan.
The platform for generating the plan would need to be more-open-than-not, and should be fairly bleeding edge—incorporating prediction markets, consensus seeking (polis), eigenkarma etc
It should be a design goal that high value contributions should be noticed, no matter the source. An example of this actually happening is where Taiwan was able to respond rapidly to Covid thanks to a moderator noticing and doing due diligence on a post in the .g0v forums re: covid, and having a process in place where that information could be escalated to government.
It should also be subject to a serious amount of adversarial testing—such a platform, if successful, will influence $ flows, and thus will be a target for capture/gaming etc etc.
As it stands, we’re lacking all 4. We’re lacking a coherent map of the polycrisis[1], we’re lacking in useful+discoverable communication channels, we’re lacking meaningful 3rd party measurement.
As it stands, the barriers to entry for those wishing to engage in meaningful work in this space are absurd.
If you lack the credentials and/or wealth to self-fund, then you’re effectively excluded—a problem which was created by an increasingly specialized world (And the worldview, cultural dynamics and behaviours it engenders) has gatekeepers from that same world, enforcing the same bottlenecks/selective pressures of that world on those who would try to solve the problem.
The neighbourhood is on fire, and the only people allowed to join the bucket chain are those most likely to be ignoring the fire—so very catch-22.
P.S.
I think there’s a ton of funding available in this space, specifically I think speculating on the markets informed by the kind of worldview that allows one to perceive the polycrisis has significant alpha. I think we can make much better predictions about the next 5-10 years than the market, and I don’t think most of the market is even trying to make good predictions on those timescales.
I’d be interested in talking/collaborating with anyone who either strongly agrees or disagrees with this logic.
On this note, if anyone wants to do and/or fund a version of aisafety.world for the polycrisis, I’m interested in contributing.
Joshua Williams created an initial version of a metacrisis map and I suggested to him a couple of days ago to make the development of such a resource more open, e.g., to turn it into a Github repository.
Do you mean that it’s possible to earn by betting long against the current market sentiment? I think this is wrong for multiple reasons, but perhaps most importantly, because the market specifically doesn’t measure how well we are faring on a lot of components of polycrisis—e.g., market would be great if all people are turned into addicted zombies. Secondly, people don’t even try to make predictions in the stock market anymore—its turned into a completely irrational valve of liquidity that is moved by Elon Musk’s tweets, narratives, and memes more than by objective factors.
It’s a good presentation, but it isn’t a map.
A literal map of the polycrisis[1] can show:
The various key facets (pollution, climate, biorisk, energy, ecology, resource constraints, globalization, economy, demography etc etc)
Relative degrees of fragility / timelines (e.g. climate change being one of the areas where we have the most slack)
Many of the significant orgs/projects working on these facets, with special emphasis placed on those that are aware of the wider polycrisis
Many of the significant communities
Many of the significant funders
In a nutshell
I mildly prefer polycrisis because it’s less abstract. The metacrisis points toward a systems dynamic for which we have no adequate levers, whereas the polycrisis points toward the effects in the real world that we need to deal with.
I am assuming we live in a world that is going to be reshaped (or ended) by technology (probably AGI) within a few decades, and that if this fails to occur the inevitable result of the metacrisis is collapse.
I think the most impact I can have is to kick the can down the road far enough that the accelerationistas get their shot. I don’t pretend this is the world I would choose to be living in, or the horse I’d want to be betting on. It is simply my current understanding of reality.
Hence: polycrisis. Deal with the symptoms. Keep the patient alive.
I posted some parts of my current visions of 1) and 2) here and here. I think these, along with the Gaia Network design that we proposed recently (the Gaia Network is not “A Plan” in its entirety, but a significant portion of it), address @Vaniver’s and @kave’s points about realism and sociological/psychological viability.
I think this is a mistake to import “democracy” at the vision level. Vision is essentially a very high-level plan, a creative engineering task. These are not decided by averaging opinions. “If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.” Also, Deutsch was writing about this in “The Beginning of Infinity” in the chapter about democracy.
We should aggregate desiderata and preferences (see “Preference Aggregation as Bayesian Inference”), but not decisions (plans, engineering designs, visions). These should be created by a coherent creative entity. The same idea is evident in the design of Open Agency Architecture.
If I understand correctly what you are gesturing at here, I think that some high-level agents in the Gaia Network should become a trusted gauge for the “planetary health metrics” we care about.
Democracy is a mistake, for all of the obvious reasons.
As is the belief amongst engineers that every problem is an engineering problem :P
We have a whole bunch of tools going mostly unused and unnoticed that could, plausibly, enable a great deal more trust and collaboration than is currently possible.
We have a whole bunch of people both thinking about and working on the polycrisis already.
My proposal is that we’re far more likely to achieve our ultimate goal—a future we’d like to live in—if we simply do our best to empower, rather than direct, others.
I expect attempts to direct, no matter how brilliant the plan or the mind(s) behind it, are likely to fail. For all the obvious reasons.
(caveat: yes AGI changes this, but it changes everything. My whole point is that we need to keep the ship from sinking long enough for AGI to take the wheel)