if you would have stopped it all when you saw the horrors, or sneered from your ivory tower at the frontier settlers, then I do think you would have been on the wrong side of history.
Much of the rhetorical strength of this post comes from your having chosen an example that turned out well[1], and choosing another example would give a really different impression. For example, the Russian revolution and early Soviet communism had equally high ideals, also did some terrible things while still striving for those ideals, and turned out disastrously. With the benefit of hindsight we can say that central economic planning is way too hard[2], and that communism is awfully totalitarianism-prone, but none of that was obvious to people at the time. Yet those who tried to stop it were clearly on the right side of history.
‘What should you do if you’re part of the colonization of North America’ is the wrong question. ‘What should you do if you’re part of a large project that expresses high ideals but is also doing some really bad things’ might have a totally different answer.
I’m not sure the latter is the right reference class for involvement with AI either, since the concern isn’t with atrocities that OpenAI is already committing[3] but with the risk of later ultra-mega-atrocities. But it at least seems closer than the original.
As an aside, ‘Knowing what we know now, if we could reach back in time and prevent the European colonization, should we do it?’ is also a really interesting question. Orson Scott Card tackles exactly this question in the less-known novel Pastwatch, which I think is one of his best.
Yep, agree that a post that would look at more things in nearby reference classes would add value. I do think that you want to be careful, I am not that excited about elucidating what “movements with high ideals” achieved. Most ”high ideals” are dumb. US colonization is interesting largely because it seemed to actually build functional institutions and not just operate with high ideals (the central point of my previous post was about teasing those apart).
I am not that excited about elucidating what “movements with high ideals” achieved. Most ”high ideals” are dumb.
Fair point, although I think that can also be hard to determine prior to knowing what will actually work in the real world. One reason I chose early communism as a counterexample is that as Scott Alexander’s pointed out (eg here), quite a lot of smart, thoughtful people took communism seriously at that time, and were reasonable to do so.
Much of the rhetorical strength of this post comes from your having chosen an example that turned out well[1], and choosing another example would give a really different impression. For example, the Russian revolution and early Soviet communism had equally high ideals, also did some terrible things while still striving for those ideals, and turned out disastrously. With the benefit of hindsight we can say that central economic planning is way too hard[2], and that communism is awfully totalitarianism-prone, but none of that was obvious to people at the time. Yet those who tried to stop it were clearly on the right side of history.
‘What should you do if you’re part of the colonization of North America’ is the wrong question. ‘What should you do if you’re part of a large project that expresses high ideals but is also doing some really bad things’ might have a totally different answer.
I’m not sure the latter is the right reference class for involvement with AI either, since the concern isn’t with atrocities that OpenAI is already committing[3] but with the risk of later ultra-mega-atrocities. But it at least seems closer than the original.
Or at least let’s take that as given for purposes of this comment.
Or was at the time, anyhow.
Setting aside naming, both at the object level and as precedent
As an aside, ‘Knowing what we know now, if we could reach back in time and prevent the European colonization, should we do it?’ is also a really interesting question. Orson Scott Card tackles exactly this question in the less-known novel Pastwatch, which I think is one of his best.
Yep, agree that a post that would look at more things in nearby reference classes would add value. I do think that you want to be careful, I am not that excited about elucidating what “movements with high ideals” achieved. Most ”high ideals” are dumb. US colonization is interesting largely because it seemed to actually build functional institutions and not just operate with high ideals (the central point of my previous post was about teasing those apart).
Fair point, although I think that can also be hard to determine prior to knowing what will actually work in the real world. One reason I chose early communism as a counterexample is that as Scott Alexander’s pointed out (eg here), quite a lot of smart, thoughtful people took communism seriously at that time, and were reasonable to do so.