This is one class of instances among many other classes of instances of the general problem of desires not aggregating. In the good case, first desire paths form through natural aggregation; then the aggregated desire gets compiled into more permanent / designed / intentional / legible structures. There’s plenty of opportunity to innovate norms, but many norms need participation to be worthwhile, and it’s often not helpful to try to change them just by saying “let’s all do X”. Further, some norms are exclusive with other norms, so there are group decisions to be made, in addition to opportunities for pareto improvements. In such cases, there has to be buy-in. The cognitive effort to get buy-in is substantial, so the desires related to the potential benefits of new norm + buy-in don’t get aggregated; Alice takes potshots that don’t add up with each other, and people can tell that she’s doing that and therefore her efforts aren’t worth investing in. Therefore I propose the norm that everyone should be more open to imagining what-ifs—envisioning possible collective futures—with the understanding that the pie-in-the-sky nature of such envisioning is to a substantial degree determined by the fact that we collectively don’t envision, rather than that we don’t commit or act.
I think the final paragraph is saying “It’d be nice for people to imagine the future where the norm has reached saturation, and maybe been built upon with other norms/tools, seeing the overall much better world that is possible, so when you’re deciding whether to give buy-in you’re properly imagining the benefit and not just the immediate tradeoffs.” Is that right?
Yep. Sounds right.
Re:
Further, some norms are exclusive with other norms, so there are group decisions to be made, in addition to opportunities for pareto improvements.
I want to add some more gears. I maybe want to start just by quoting my past self:
Sometimes, groups of humans disagree about what to do.
We also sometimes disagree about how to decide what to do.
Sometimes we even disagree about how to decide how to decide.
Among the philosophically unsophisticated, there is a sad, frustrating way this can play out: People resolve “how to decide” with yelling, or bloodshed, or, (if you’re lucky), charismatic leaders assembling coalitions. This can leave lots of value on the table, or actively destroy value.
Among the extremely philosophically sophisticated, there are different sad, frustrating ways this can play out: People have very well thought out principles informing their sense of “how to coordinate well.” But, their principles are not the same, and they don’t have good meta-principles on when/how to compromise. They spend hours (or years) arguing about how to decide. Or they burn a lot of energy in conflict. Or they end up walking away from what could have been a good deal, if only people were a bit better at communicating.
And
The Coordination Frontier is my term for “the cutting edge of coordination techniques, which are not obvious to most people.” I think it’s a useful concept for us to collectively have aswe navigate complex new domains in the coming years.
Sometimes you are on the coordination frontier, and unfortunately that means it’s either your job to explain a principle to other people, or you have to sadly watch value get destroyed. Often, this is in the middle of a heated conflict, where noticing-what’s-going-on is particularly hard.
Other times, you might think you are on the coordination frontier, but actually you’re wrong – your principles are missing something important and aren’t actually an improvement. Maybe you’re just rationalizing things that are convenient for you.
Sometimes, Alice and Bob [Alice 2] disagree on principles, but are importantly both somewhat right, and would benefit from somehow integrating their different principles into a coherent decision framework.
I often wish Alices would be conducting their campaigns in a way that seemed to be tracking this.
This is one class of instances among many other classes of instances of the general problem of desires not aggregating. In the good case, first desire paths form through natural aggregation; then the aggregated desire gets compiled into more permanent / designed / intentional / legible structures. There’s plenty of opportunity to innovate norms, but many norms need participation to be worthwhile, and it’s often not helpful to try to change them just by saying “let’s all do X”. Further, some norms are exclusive with other norms, so there are group decisions to be made, in addition to opportunities for pareto improvements. In such cases, there has to be buy-in. The cognitive effort to get buy-in is substantial, so the desires related to the potential benefits of new norm + buy-in don’t get aggregated; Alice takes potshots that don’t add up with each other, and people can tell that she’s doing that and therefore her efforts aren’t worth investing in. Therefore I propose the norm that everyone should be more open to imagining what-ifs—envisioning possible collective futures—with the understanding that the pie-in-the-sky nature of such envisioning is to a substantial degree determined by the fact that we collectively don’t envision, rather than that we don’t commit or act.
I think the final paragraph is saying “It’d be nice for people to imagine the future where the norm has reached saturation, and maybe been built upon with other norms/tools, seeing the overall much better world that is possible, so when you’re deciding whether to give buy-in you’re properly imagining the benefit and not just the immediate tradeoffs.” Is that right?
Yep. Sounds right.
Re:
I want to add some more gears. I maybe want to start just by quoting my past self:
And
I often wish Alices would be conducting their campaigns in a way that seemed to be tracking this.