I really don’t get the America argument. The one thing it’s hard to imagine anyone stopping was the smallpox and such. It would have happened sooner or later unless the entire progress of technology was put on halt. Mass deployable vaccines before transoceanic sail ships seem unlikely. Someone would have gotten to the other side and even had their intentions been the best possible, people would have died out of sheer ignorance.
But other than that… Nothing strictly needed to happen the way it did. Nor was any of it necessary for modern democracy itself to be born, except in a general butterfly effect sense. Many of the ideas came from France, the country who by the way shortly also rebelled against its king. Others had roots in classical antiquity. Others, possibly, from the natives themselves, such that perhaps a world with a powerful undefeated Iroquois Confederacy that got seeded by European political philosophy ideas is actually better off on the democracy axis.
And even past that, once the 13 colonies were independent, the next great step on the path to modernity and freedom was them abolishing their own slavery at home, not conquering the land mass to the west of them. Yes, eventually that land’s resources gave the US an incredibly powerful strategic position and resource base, but that too wasn’t the only force for democracy in the world. At that point too much was already in motion.
So yeah, hard as alt history always is to work out… Bad example IMO. Most importantly, no one is ever actually a time traveller. They can’t judge or know what will be good or bad via indirect consequences centuries in the future. If you saw conquistadores slaughter natives in the 1600s you wouldn’t think it’s all for the Golden Path leading eventually to democracy (nor would democracy be a value you particularly care about). You would just be seeing godless murderers doing their dirty work out of base greed and have a choice of what to do about it.
But other than that… Nothing strictly needed to happen the way it did.
Yes, that’s the whole point! The suffering was not necessary! It was indeed bad.
I maybe should make this analogy to my own present thoughts about the ecosystem more explicit:
Many of my friends are for some godforsaken reason actively doing capabilities research on building ASI, which I am worried will constitute the greatest atrocity in human history. Also many of the people around me engage in all kinds of destructive and confusing politics.
Does that mean I should disavow it all? Go away and build something else and new entirely further away from the corruption and the horrors? Or should I try to fix it and improve it? And how much egg-breaking and moral norm violation should I tolerate?
And I don’t super want to go into the more straightforward version here, because having a conversation premised on people around me being compared to people having committed all kinds of atrocities in the early North American settlement period seems like a quite tricky thing to navigate, but maybe this makes the structure of the argument playing out in my head that I am putting down here clear.
Yes, that’s the whole point! The suffering was not necessary! It was indeed bad.
Well then what’s the point of the counterfactual? The only two possible futures aren’t “no genocide and no democracy” or “genocide and then democracy”. There’s definitely a third possible future that’s “no genocide and also democracy”, so why as a hypothetical time traveller with full foreknowledge shouldn’t you strive just for that?
The conquering framing makes it seem different from just that.
This is the same thing as the ASI question in general. Do you build power for the conquering machine? I mean, the AIs seem pretty nice and useful so far. It’s gone much better than America itself, in fact, at least as far as atrocities go. Why are you trying to throw your body on the gears? Is it maybe because you’re not sure the goodness part is in control of the conquering part?
And remember you can’t decide with the benefit of hindsight.
Why do you call this an “atrocity” rather than a “mistake”? It seems obvious to me that the people creating ASI do not agree with your assessment of the risks and believe they are doing good. They are not seeking to deliberately destroy humanity.
Do you believe that people who think a pause in the development of modern AI paradigm it’s -EV should consider you “the greatest evil”?
Does that mean I should disavow it all? Go away and build something else and new entirely further away from the corruption and the horrors? Or should I try to fix it and improve it? And how much egg-breaking and moral norm violation should I tolerate?
What are your strategic options?
In the case of someone witnessing the horrors of colonialism, they might not have had very many/any options that would stop colonialism from happening, but leaving and doing something else wouldn’t have helped. So the thing to do in that case is do what you can, to the best of your ability, to ameliorate the situation. “Die with dignity”, as in, don’t give up even if it seems like there’s no path to victory, and do what you can even if you expect the ultimate outcome will not be good, but don’t actually do things that metaphorically “kill” you (remove your ability to act) unless you’ve thought about it very carefully.
The meme of the serenity prayer seems relevant here.
I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, I expect it is extremely hard.
maybe this makes the structure of the argument playing out in my head that I am putting down here clear.
Honestly, this did make it clearer for me what might be going through your head. I was confused, and it makes a bit more sense now.
But if you were facing the choice between abandoning the American project entirely, and letting it happen, I think letting it happen was the right choice.
I do not think there were very many people, if any, whose individual abandonment of the American project would have stopped colonialism. So the actual choice is “let it happen without your involvement” and “let it happen while trying to make it less bad”, rather than “stop it from happening by throwing your body into the gears” (not an actual option for very many people, if any).
I think if the founders had decided the horrors were too much and they weren’t going to do this whole declaration of independence founding of a country thing but instead would go knit some socks, some country or countries would have been founded on some principles less good, and colonialism would have continued.
I’d been thinking over the weekend about what the “colonialism didn’t happen” counterfactual would have to look like, and it seems like it would require the substantial replacement of the values and cultures of multiple European countries, the effects of which would be very unpredictable. There was a lot of momentum behind colonialism, and “America doesn’t get founded because the founders turn away in horror” wouldn’t have stopped it, I don’t think. Maybe “no colonialism” would have prevented the founding of the US as we know it (quite possible) or the spread of democratic values in the world (seems less likely to me), but “no US” wouldn’t have stopped colonialism even in the area covered by the US, I’m pretty sure.
If the founders who spent their efforts building support for founding a nation around the ideals of the declaration of independence had instead put their efforts, collectively, towards blocking colonialism… I don’t know what would have happened, but I expect we’d still have had colonialism. Maybe a less bad version, but smallpox and racism would still have been present, and colonists would still have expanded into the New World.
The one thing it’s hard to imagine anyone stopping was the smallpox and such. It would have happened sooner or later unless the entire progress of technology was put on halt. Mass deployable vaccines before transoceanic sail ships seem unlikely. Someone would have gotten to the other side and even had their intentions been the best possible, people would have died out of sheer ignorance.
I don’t know if you need vaccines. From memory, the incubation time of smallpox is about half the transatlantic voyage time (2 weeks versus 4 weeks)? I don’t know how much we know about how the first smallpox case crossed the Atlantic, or whether it happened more than once. But I wonder whether a policy on long voyages of “if we notice someone on board has smallpox, we make them walk the plank to protect everyone else on board” (not even thinking about the people at the destination) might have been a) possible in a nearby world and b) effective?
(I’m vaguely aware that the voyage wasn’t nonstop, they’d go via e.g. the Azores(?), presumably with a chance to pick up smallpox there. Maybe that sinks the idea.)
I really don’t get the America argument. The one thing it’s hard to imagine anyone stopping was the smallpox and such. It would have happened sooner or later unless the entire progress of technology was put on halt. Mass deployable vaccines before transoceanic sail ships seem unlikely. Someone would have gotten to the other side and even had their intentions been the best possible, people would have died out of sheer ignorance.
But other than that… Nothing strictly needed to happen the way it did. Nor was any of it necessary for modern democracy itself to be born, except in a general butterfly effect sense. Many of the ideas came from France, the country who by the way shortly also rebelled against its king. Others had roots in classical antiquity. Others, possibly, from the natives themselves, such that perhaps a world with a powerful undefeated Iroquois Confederacy that got seeded by European political philosophy ideas is actually better off on the democracy axis.
And even past that, once the 13 colonies were independent, the next great step on the path to modernity and freedom was them abolishing their own slavery at home, not conquering the land mass to the west of them. Yes, eventually that land’s resources gave the US an incredibly powerful strategic position and resource base, but that too wasn’t the only force for democracy in the world. At that point too much was already in motion.
So yeah, hard as alt history always is to work out… Bad example IMO. Most importantly, no one is ever actually a time traveller. They can’t judge or know what will be good or bad via indirect consequences centuries in the future. If you saw conquistadores slaughter natives in the 1600s you wouldn’t think it’s all for the Golden Path leading eventually to democracy (nor would democracy be a value you particularly care about). You would just be seeing godless murderers doing their dirty work out of base greed and have a choice of what to do about it.
Yes, that’s the whole point! The suffering was not necessary! It was indeed bad.
I maybe should make this analogy to my own present thoughts about the ecosystem more explicit:
Many of my friends are for some godforsaken reason actively doing capabilities research on building ASI, which I am worried will constitute the greatest atrocity in human history. Also many of the people around me engage in all kinds of destructive and confusing politics.
Does that mean I should disavow it all? Go away and build something else and new entirely further away from the corruption and the horrors? Or should I try to fix it and improve it? And how much egg-breaking and moral norm violation should I tolerate?
And I don’t super want to go into the more straightforward version here, because having a conversation premised on people around me being compared to people having committed all kinds of atrocities in the early North American settlement period seems like a quite tricky thing to navigate, but maybe this makes the structure of the argument playing out in my head that I am putting down here clear.
Well then what’s the point of the counterfactual? The only two possible futures aren’t “no genocide and no democracy” or “genocide and then democracy”. There’s definitely a third possible future that’s “no genocide and also democracy”, so why as a hypothetical time traveller with full foreknowledge shouldn’t you strive just for that?
The conquering framing makes it seem different from just that.
This is the same thing as the ASI question in general. Do you build power for the conquering machine? I mean, the AIs seem pretty nice and useful so far. It’s gone much better than America itself, in fact, at least as far as atrocities go. Why are you trying to throw your body on the gears? Is it maybe because you’re not sure the goodness part is in control of the conquering part?
And remember you can’t decide with the benefit of hindsight.
Why do you call this an “atrocity” rather than a “mistake”? It seems obvious to me that the people creating ASI do not agree with your assessment of the risks and believe they are doing good. They are not seeking to deliberately destroy humanity.
Do you believe that people who think a pause in the development of modern AI paradigm it’s -EV should consider you “the greatest evil”?
What are your strategic options?
In the case of someone witnessing the horrors of colonialism, they might not have had very many/any options that would stop colonialism from happening, but leaving and doing something else wouldn’t have helped. So the thing to do in that case is do what you can, to the best of your ability, to ameliorate the situation. “Die with dignity”, as in, don’t give up even if it seems like there’s no path to victory, and do what you can even if you expect the ultimate outcome will not be good, but don’t actually do things that metaphorically “kill” you (remove your ability to act) unless you’ve thought about it very carefully.
The meme of the serenity prayer seems relevant here.
I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, I expect it is extremely hard.
Honestly, this did make it clearer for me what might be going through your head. I was confused, and it makes a bit more sense now.
I do not think there were very many people, if any, whose individual abandonment of the American project would have stopped colonialism. So the actual choice is “let it happen without your involvement” and “let it happen while trying to make it less bad”, rather than “stop it from happening by throwing your body into the gears” (not an actual option for very many people, if any).
I think if the founders had decided the horrors were too much and they weren’t going to do this whole declaration of independence founding of a country thing but instead would go knit some socks, some country or countries would have been founded on some principles less good, and colonialism would have continued.
I’d been thinking over the weekend about what the “colonialism didn’t happen” counterfactual would have to look like, and it seems like it would require the substantial replacement of the values and cultures of multiple European countries, the effects of which would be very unpredictable. There was a lot of momentum behind colonialism, and “America doesn’t get founded because the founders turn away in horror” wouldn’t have stopped it, I don’t think. Maybe “no colonialism” would have prevented the founding of the US as we know it (quite possible) or the spread of democratic values in the world (seems less likely to me), but “no US” wouldn’t have stopped colonialism even in the area covered by the US, I’m pretty sure.
If the founders who spent their efforts building support for founding a nation around the ideals of the declaration of independence had instead put their efforts, collectively, towards blocking colonialism… I don’t know what would have happened, but I expect we’d still have had colonialism. Maybe a less bad version, but smallpox and racism would still have been present, and colonists would still have expanded into the New World.
I don’t know if you need vaccines. From memory, the incubation time of smallpox is about half the transatlantic voyage time (2 weeks versus 4 weeks)? I don’t know how much we know about how the first smallpox case crossed the Atlantic, or whether it happened more than once. But I wonder whether a policy on long voyages of “if we notice someone on board has smallpox, we make them walk the plank to protect everyone else on board” (not even thinking about the people at the destination) might have been a) possible in a nearby world and b) effective?
(I’m vaguely aware that the voyage wasn’t nonstop, they’d go via e.g. the Azores(?), presumably with a chance to pick up smallpox there. Maybe that sinks the idea.)