“develop new immigration rules that cities across America would be comfortable cooperating with”—this is the “make government super-efficient because, of course, we can be certain it is always doing what we want” argument. The alternative is “always make sure there’s some sand in the gears of government because when it is not doing what we want things can go really badly, so let’s limit the velocity with which that can happen”.
Yep; I think we are entering a technological regime where slow government immediately leads to human extinction, or the replacement of that government with a fast government. While it lasted, slow government had some upsides, but I think it makes sense to change with the times.
(For example, in a lot of classic cyberpunk literature, the old governments of the world are still around, just irrelevant compared to the corporations running important parts of the important cities.)
I’m reminded of something Noah Smith said on a podcast, which I’m going to paraphrase.
The advantage of dictatorship, or other systems with extremely concentrated political power, is that dictators get things done, because nobody can tell them no.
The disadvantage of dicatorship is that dictators get stupid things done, because nobody can tell them no.
I think this is easiest to see in biorisk contexts. A fast government is more able to process new information, identify new threats and respond appropriately, and develop new capacities as required. Like, we’re still ~2 years in to discussion of mirror life with no ban / official government designation; with the current rate of technological progress, that’s ok but I think it wouldn’t be if technological progress were running ten times faster. (And that’s just saying “this isn’t ok”, not even developing new monitoring systems or countermeasures.)
“A fast government is more able to process new information, identify new threats and respond appropriately...”—I was with you right up to that last part. In what way is a fast government more able to respond appropriately?
The main answer is “responding at all is better than not responding”. Yes, I’m aware that governments have made lots of terrible decisions over the years—it’s not obvious to me that if we had the Bush-created pandemic preparedness office at the beginning of COVID (rather than it being dissolved earlier by Trump), they would have made things better instead of worse—but from my vantage point it is obvious that Operation Warp Speed was good and the FDA being slow (both on testing earlier and on approving the vaccine) was bad. In many contexts, velocity is a virtue on its own.
If we accept your premise that slow governments immediately lead to human extinction that in no way implies that fast governments are any better. Yes, if a fast government made the right decisions it could, in theory, implement those decisions more quickly, but I see no logical reason to believe that a fast government is any more likely than a slow government to make correct decisions and quite possibly the opposite. I’m afraid I don’t find the contents of cyberpunk literature, classic or otherwise, to be a basis for large-scale political decisions or structures.
“develop new immigration rules that cities across America would be comfortable cooperating with”—this is the “make government super-efficient because, of course, we can be certain it is always doing what we want” argument. The alternative is “always make sure there’s some sand in the gears of government because when it is not doing what we want things can go really badly, so let’s limit the velocity with which that can happen”.
Yep; I think we are entering a technological regime where slow government immediately leads to human extinction, or the replacement of that government with a fast government. While it lasted, slow government had some upsides, but I think it makes sense to change with the times.
(For example, in a lot of classic cyberpunk literature, the old governments of the world are still around, just irrelevant compared to the corporations running important parts of the important cities.)
I’m reminded of something Noah Smith said on a podcast, which I’m going to paraphrase.
The advantage of dictatorship, or other systems with extremely concentrated political power, is that dictators get things done, because nobody can tell them no.
The disadvantage of dicatorship is that dictators get stupid things done, because nobody can tell them no.
What is your theory of how fast government can prevent extinction?
I think this is easiest to see in biorisk contexts. A fast government is more able to process new information, identify new threats and respond appropriately, and develop new capacities as required. Like, we’re still ~2 years in to discussion of mirror life with no ban / official government designation; with the current rate of technological progress, that’s ok but I think it wouldn’t be if technological progress were running ten times faster. (And that’s just saying “this isn’t ok”, not even developing new monitoring systems or countermeasures.)
“A fast government is more able to process new information, identify new threats and respond appropriately...”—I was with you right up to that last part. In what way is a fast government more able to respond appropriately?
The main answer is “responding at all is better than not responding”. Yes, I’m aware that governments have made lots of terrible decisions over the years—it’s not obvious to me that if we had the Bush-created pandemic preparedness office at the beginning of COVID (rather than it being dissolved earlier by Trump), they would have made things better instead of worse—but from my vantage point it is obvious that Operation Warp Speed was good and the FDA being slow (both on testing earlier and on approving the vaccine) was bad. In many contexts, velocity is a virtue on its own.
If we accept your premise that slow governments immediately lead to human extinction that in no way implies that fast governments are any better. Yes, if a fast government made the right decisions it could, in theory, implement those decisions more quickly, but I see no logical reason to believe that a fast government is any more likely than a slow government to make correct decisions and quite possibly the opposite. I’m afraid I don’t find the contents of cyberpunk literature, classic or otherwise, to be a basis for large-scale political decisions or structures.