I think this is a good question and I don’t have especially strong feelings on this but I don’t think any attempt here would work. It’s just really hard to direct chaos in the direction you want.
A tangentially related and perhaps interesting intuition I have:
I have communist friends who think that if the world got bad enough (the particular reason doesn’t matter) this could actually be good because there would finally be a good enough reason to revolt and communism would win. But they are assuming the public would use the chaos as an opportunity to do communism when it seems just as likely that they would do authoritarianism or direct the anger towards an ethnic or religious minority, etc. The chaos/anger/suffering more likely then not won’t be directed in the exact direction they want. In general if you are advocating for a specific law or ideal, chaos is probably really bad news and I think its better to try to minimize the chaos then try to harness it in the direction you are hoping for.
Harnessing chaos could be useful if the chaos has a very clear cause that you predicted beforehand. For instance, if AIs are autonomously causing a global crisis by hacking everything, surely the “AI capable and dangerous” crowd gains public credence and political capital over the “AI incapable” crowd or the “AI capable and not dangerous” crowd. By contrast, questions like “does communism accurately describe this chaos in the world” are much higher-level and harder to answer, so the public might not update in the direction communists want.
Good point and admittedly this is way different and more reasonable then the communist take. I still imagine that the chaos could be directed in anti-capitalism or anti-crime directions or somewhere totally unexpected. I think the crux-y thing here is maybe what interventions are being proposed and are they higher leverage then trying to prevent the chaos to begin with.
I think this is a good question and I don’t have especially strong feelings on this but I don’t think any attempt here would work. It’s just really hard to direct chaos in the direction you want.
A tangentially related and perhaps interesting intuition I have:
I have communist friends who think that if the world got bad enough (the particular reason doesn’t matter) this could actually be good because there would finally be a good enough reason to revolt and communism would win. But they are assuming the public would use the chaos as an opportunity to do communism when it seems just as likely that they would do authoritarianism or direct the anger towards an ethnic or religious minority, etc. The chaos/anger/suffering more likely then not won’t be directed in the exact direction they want. In general if you are advocating for a specific law or ideal, chaos is probably really bad news and I think its better to try to minimize the chaos then try to harness it in the direction you are hoping for.
It’s not only communists, accelerationism is a strategy applicable more generally to any sufficiently anti-status-quo ideology.
Yes I agree. This is a very interesting pattern. I would love a satisfying explanation for why so many people seem to think in this way.
Harnessing chaos could be useful if the chaos has a very clear cause that you predicted beforehand. For instance, if AIs are autonomously causing a global crisis by hacking everything, surely the “AI capable and dangerous” crowd gains public credence and political capital over the “AI incapable” crowd or the “AI capable and not dangerous” crowd. By contrast, questions like “does communism accurately describe this chaos in the world” are much higher-level and harder to answer, so the public might not update in the direction communists want.
Good point and admittedly this is way different and more reasonable then the communist take. I still imagine that the chaos could be directed in anti-capitalism or anti-crime directions or somewhere totally unexpected. I think the crux-y thing here is maybe what interventions are being proposed and are they higher leverage then trying to prevent the chaos to begin with.