I like the title question. It seems like a large(r?) focus of the essay is also on “how to have culture that doesn’t require alienation”. That’s what I imagine when I read this:
But it’s one thing to convince people that society is predatory, or misleading them, or generally worthy of being alien to, and another thing to create a collective that is still able to do good in the world, and worth belonging to.
Have I understood rightly that this is a question you’re thinking about?
Yes, tho in the spirit of “less wrong” instead of “not wrong” I think of “less alien” instead of “not alien.” (I think in order to actually get rid of alienation, you would need to get rid of individuality.)
The practical consideration is from the x-risk angle. If you’re pro-humanity and buy the basic scientific picture of the universe, almost all of the value looks like it’s in the future, when there can be many more humans than there are now experiencing more joy and less misery. Even if you look at it from a selfish perspective, almost all of your expected lifeyears come from the chance of living an extremely long time, tho you have to be patient for discounting to not wipe that out.
But if you buy the basic social picture of humanity, almost all of your contribution comes from ‘staying in your lane’ and being a cog in a complicated machine much more subtle than you could have designed on your own. Perhaps you could become an expert in a narrow field of study and slightly shift things, but asking the big questions is ‘above your pay grade,’ and you should mostly expect to make things worse instead of better by looking at those questions or taking actions in response.
And so it seems like people need to let go of many parts of that picture to be highly effective; but also, I think the basic social picture is one of the main reasons many people have to be pro-humanity in the first place. [As opposed to in favor of themselves or their specific friends, in opposition to a hostile world.]
I like the title question. It seems like a large(r?) focus of the essay is also on “how to have culture that doesn’t require alienation”. That’s what I imagine when I read this:
Have I understood rightly that this is a question you’re thinking about?
Yes, tho in the spirit of “less wrong” instead of “not wrong” I think of “less alien” instead of “not alien.” (I think in order to actually get rid of alienation, you would need to get rid of individuality.)
The practical consideration is from the x-risk angle. If you’re pro-humanity and buy the basic scientific picture of the universe, almost all of the value looks like it’s in the future, when there can be many more humans than there are now experiencing more joy and less misery. Even if you look at it from a selfish perspective, almost all of your expected lifeyears come from the chance of living an extremely long time, tho you have to be patient for discounting to not wipe that out.
But if you buy the basic social picture of humanity, almost all of your contribution comes from ‘staying in your lane’ and being a cog in a complicated machine much more subtle than you could have designed on your own. Perhaps you could become an expert in a narrow field of study and slightly shift things, but asking the big questions is ‘above your pay grade,’ and you should mostly expect to make things worse instead of better by looking at those questions or taking actions in response.
And so it seems like people need to let go of many parts of that picture to be highly effective; but also, I think the basic social picture is one of the main reasons many people have to be pro-humanity in the first place. [As opposed to in favor of themselves or their specific friends, in opposition to a hostile world.]