I recently read Deep Utopia and I found it frustratingly disjointed and inelegant. I kept expecting a big reveal, or a drawing together of the various threads into an unexpected insight, which never came.
I agree with the review by Steve Jurvetson, linked at the start of Hanson's review.
> My biggest frustration with the book is that he takes over 500 pages to convey what could be more clearly said in well under 50...
> there is no high-level organization to the book...
> more of a survey of all possible answers versus the much more difficult task of making specific predictions....
It's been interesting trying to revisit Bostrom over the last few months. I'm really not a fan of cancel culture, but it does feel much more difficult to consider anything he's ever said without the context of that 'racist provocation' email that recently resurfaced, and the pre-emptive tonedeaf non-apology apology he wrote in response [0].
I know Oxford let him off the hook (it doesn't surprise me as he's a huge asset to them), but his ideas feel that much more like provocative sensationalism now, it's like they're tainted in my head. Kinda puts him in the same category as Jordan Peterson.
Idk if you read the actual letter, there doesn’t seem to be any racism in his intention, but rather a caricature of cancel culture that when taken completely out of context reads like a racist rant. It’s unfortunate that we have become so superficial that we cannot see beyond sentence fragments to see meaning.
Still, it was an example of thumbing of the nose to the cancel culturista, an act of defiance that apparently wasn’t taken in stride.
With the censors, It’s not so much what you say, but rather not speaking in the way that “they” want you to that brings out their ire - you can (and cacelistas often do) say the most racist drivel, but as long as it’s said using the right language, it’s acceptable, even laudable.
I have come to think of this faux-left movement as being an effort more to reshape culture by pruning meaning and prohibiting discussion, a mentally lazy revolution that pretends to solve problems by hiding from them.
I did read the actual letter. Idk if you read my actual comment.
Him stating "Blacks are more stupid than whites", and following it up with "I like that sentence and I think it is true", feels unnecessarily offensive, and he doesn't really address that in his apology at all.
Saying hurtful things and then trying to intellectualise why they were hurtful, with an apology letter clearly aimed at your academic peers rather than those who your words would have hurt, is not about censorship. It's about not being a dick.
Hmm, I wonder if we read the same letter, since you are leaving the salient parts out. He said some stupid things, as an example of saying stupid things.
It was reprehensible, IMO, and exhibited very poor judgment, but his full statement makes it clear his intention was not to imply that one race is genetically superior to another, but rather to say that poor nutrition and socioeconomic conditions lead to suboptimal outcomes and measurable differences in cognitive health.
I think that’s a plausible hypothesis, and I think that poor nutrition and socioeconomic conditions are something that a wealthy society should probably be trying to address.
I also think that he used some very portly chosen words to make an unimportant, belligerent point… and then that point was roundly made for him by everyone deciding that he must be a racist.
And maybe he is, I don’t know, but the contents of that particular letter don’t say that to me, even as objectionable as the parts that you brought out of the full context certainly are.
As for not being a dick, he absolutely should be called out for saying dickish, petulant things. But that’s not what happened.
"I think you, K0balt, are a very poor quality person." I like that sentence. I think it's true. But come on, I would never leave a comment starting like that on HN, it would go against the guidelines and be plain rude.
lol. I’m not really sure that’s apples to apples, but if it is close then I would propose that the right thing to follow that up with would be a proper apology for your offensive language.
Obviously mr bozo didn’t do that, which makes him either clueless or kind of a dick, and he absolutely should be called out for that. But that’s not what happened.
> Apparently folks in the USSR once wanted to find aliens because they assumed that, as aliens must be very smart, they’d be communists.
On the other hand, the conceit of Pandora's Planet (1973) was that the aliens were technologically advanced, but somewhat earnest and honest and dim*, so they encounter earth and get steamrollered by our advertising, conmen, and fads.
Fast forwarding half a century, I wonder if a Federation of Planets counterpart would have the memetic antibodies to resist assimilation via gamification dark patterns?
* this now seems less plausible to me than it did at the time; I'm guessing a large driver for developing (energy-intensive!) intelligence is spending much of your time around species that indicate one action but intend a different one.
It's all about fertility, reproduction. When intelligence offers a greater chance of fertility, that species will trend towards becoming more intelligent. In the scenario where intelligence starts to become an impediment to reproduction, like exactly what is happening right now with humans, then a species will start to become less intelligent. So for an alien species to succeed, they're likely to need to adopt some sort of ideology that:
- Keeps fertility high
- Keeps outward motivation up
- Protects from pleasure traps
Explaining parts 2&3 - imagine we create some sort of virtual device that one plugs in and it just basically gives you endless pleasure. If enough people would be interested in such a device, it could easily destroy a species. A rather odd 'great filter' of the Fermi Paradox. It's a species not going out with a bang or a whimper, but something more like a moan. Similarly, if people are just comfortable enough with what and where they are, then they may not have the motivation to carry out the massive work required to actually explore the stars.
Putting these altogether, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the first intelligent alien species we meet immediately begins trying to convert us to their God(s). Convert all the infidels of the universe seems like one sure fire solution for all the above. It also sets the stage for dystopia for those who choose not to acknowledge the grace of Qzar'dn the Almighty.
The species with the greatest fertility (prokaryotes) are the least intelligent.
(and looking at r-selected vs K-selected species in general the inverse relationship seems to hold: greater intelligence correlates with lower litter size; compare frogs and rats)
Yes, and K-selected species are much more likely to end up dying off. So we're considering an intelligent species that both managed to stay intelligent and also managed to survive against numerous predictable obstacles, including even overcoming hedonism itself which we may one day be able to 'produce' as infinitely and cheaply as anything else.
It really limits the practically viable type of groups that we'd run into, and largely rejects the overwhelming majority of the tropes of sci-fi. Because most utopic visions in sci-fi assume a sort of post-scarcity universe where practically everything is available in practically infinite quantities. Yet exactly 0 (to my knowledge) have ever explained how this didn't just result in mass self indulgence driving an extinction level fertility crisis.
In fact the only episode I can even think of that hit on this was "The Game" [1] in Star Trek, and it ended up being some trite story about the addiction being used as a foreign weapon, and not as an naturally emergent self destructive behavior of a society that surpasses certain technical/material milestones.
If I ever stop seeing youngsters around me pairing off, or the slightly less young having children, I'll start worrying about wireheaded fertility crises.
Until then I'm burning cycles on more pressing sci-fi inspired problems, like whether or not it is ethical to derive sustenance from Eloi if you just drink their blood (like the Maasai?) instead of eating them (like the Fore?).
Perception can be tricky on this issue because each and every female having an average of 1 child would be a catastrophic level fertility crisis. Japan is falling into complete demographic collapse right now, and that's with each and every female having an average of 1.3 children.
So I mean imagine what that would look like. If you look at 6 couples and all have at least 1 child, with 2 of them having 2 - then it seems ridiculous to think about fertility issues as being critical. Yet, paradoxically, that's Japan - that is a ~1.33 fertility rate. And it means you are trending towards complete demographic collapse, all the while baby diapers are selling perfectly fine. And as that collapse kicks in, we'll likely see a vicious cycle - a rapidly shrinking economy and collapsing demography will likely trigger even lower fertility rates.
As for wireheading - I didn't want to nitpick that post, but that was not not quite what I am talking about. Rather, wireheading would be an example of the more general concept of some sort of a pleasure device. Given the state of fertility today, it's arguable that something as simple as the internet would suffice. All you need is something that people are content to engage in, in lieu of our natural biological instincts.
Tell you what, how about I tackle sustainable ethical Eloi husbandry, and you tackle the fertility crisis?
If you have a uterus, this should be no problem: you're not covered by Jockey Club rules, so AI is an option, and if you prefer live cover, you probably don't even need to pay for the jumps.
If you don't have a uterus, it'll be slightly more difficult, but I get 13m ghits for tradwife, so you ought to be able to find someone with a uterus who can be convinced to have 4-12 children?
Then there's always the A Boy and his Dog (1975) repopulation solution...
The reason we handled the Black Death (and world wars, Spanish Flu, and so on) so relatively comfortably is precisely because we had healthy fertility rates. Now we no longer do. In a place like Japan any such occurrence would now likely be an extinction level event.
And Japan is largely just a window to the future for Western society at large. Fertility rates lag disaster by about 60 years. That's the time it takes for the first generation (give or take 20 years) with poor fertility rates to start dying off. Japan's fertility rate only collapsed about 40 years ago, so today is still the good times for them. Our fertility rate is only collapsing quite recently, so we still have a good number of decades ahead. It's like watching a train wreck unfold at a snail's pace, yet people nonetheless failing to move out of the way.
Just to visually elaborate upon this all, here [1] is Japan's population pyramid. You can see that right now it still looks at least somewhat reasonable, even though they're already having horrible outcomes. Now imagine what it will look like in ~20-30 years when it goes from a sort of vase shape to an outright upside down pyramid. You should be able to see that it means the population will start declining at an exponential rate. And that's what awaits the entire Western world if current trends aren't sharply reversed.
Hahaha, you know - it seems pretty funny, but I think it's not a bad idea at all! They are also doing other things like offering substantial payments to married couples have who have children. They have an abnormal fertility issue going on thanks to the 90s. When the USSR collapsed Russia economically collapsed and fell into borderline anarchy, to say nothing of rampant alcoholism and drug use, which sent fertility rates plummeting even below Japan.
It's getting much better now, but they lost the better part of a generation, and they're still below where they should be. Their population pyramid is here [1] where you can see it all too clearly. That huge gaping maw that peaks at around 28 years old is due to fertility collapse in the 90s. I think it's also reasonable evidence for my 'vicious cycle' hypothesis.
The trough at 80 must be WWII, but I wonder what the trough at 57 might be?
Rampant alcoholism would easily explain the gender imbalance at the older end: male and alcoholic tends to end poorly, especially if tobacco is involved on top.
Really interesting point on the trough at 57. I have no idea! That's really quite visible, and would've been around 1967. But there were, to my knowledge, no particularly major events around then, in the USSR, that could easily explain it.
On the gender imbalance, men just tend to die younger than women. As a funny (?) factoid, evolution/nature also somehow optimizes for this. There's about 107 boys born for every 100 girls. [1] But after we get done getting ourselves killed in all sorts of creative ways, you end up with a sex ratio that's almost exactly 50:50 across all ages; at older ages you end with a sex ratio skewed towards women.
For context, they did a survey on the cover of the book, and one of them features Sisyphus, on top of the hill, with his boulder. I found it captures the topic of the book quite well.
28 comments
[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 77.6 ms ] threadUnderstatement of the year.
I agree with the review by Steve Jurvetson, linked at the start of Hanson's review.
> My biggest frustration with the book is that he takes over 500 pages to convey what could be more clearly said in well under 50...
> there is no high-level organization to the book...
> more of a survey of all possible answers versus the much more difficult task of making specific predictions....
I know Oxford let him off the hook (it doesn't surprise me as he's a huge asset to them), but his ideas feel that much more like provocative sensationalism now, it's like they're tainted in my head. Kinda puts him in the same category as Jordan Peterson.
Also, relevant discussion from a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40065862
[0]: https://nickbostrom.com/oldemail.pdf
Still, it was an example of thumbing of the nose to the cancel culturista, an act of defiance that apparently wasn’t taken in stride.
With the censors, It’s not so much what you say, but rather not speaking in the way that “they” want you to that brings out their ire - you can (and cacelistas often do) say the most racist drivel, but as long as it’s said using the right language, it’s acceptable, even laudable.
I have come to think of this faux-left movement as being an effort more to reshape culture by pruning meaning and prohibiting discussion, a mentally lazy revolution that pretends to solve problems by hiding from them.
Him stating "Blacks are more stupid than whites", and following it up with "I like that sentence and I think it is true", feels unnecessarily offensive, and he doesn't really address that in his apology at all.
Saying hurtful things and then trying to intellectualise why they were hurtful, with an apology letter clearly aimed at your academic peers rather than those who your words would have hurt, is not about censorship. It's about not being a dick.
It was reprehensible, IMO, and exhibited very poor judgment, but his full statement makes it clear his intention was not to imply that one race is genetically superior to another, but rather to say that poor nutrition and socioeconomic conditions lead to suboptimal outcomes and measurable differences in cognitive health.
I think that’s a plausible hypothesis, and I think that poor nutrition and socioeconomic conditions are something that a wealthy society should probably be trying to address.
I also think that he used some very portly chosen words to make an unimportant, belligerent point… and then that point was roundly made for him by everyone deciding that he must be a racist.
And maybe he is, I don’t know, but the contents of that particular letter don’t say that to me, even as objectionable as the parts that you brought out of the full context certainly are.
As for not being a dick, he absolutely should be called out for saying dickish, petulant things. But that’s not what happened.
Obviously mr bozo didn’t do that, which makes him either clueless or kind of a dick, and he absolutely should be called out for that. But that’s not what happened.
On the other hand, the conceit of Pandora's Planet (1973) was that the aliens were technologically advanced, but somewhat earnest and honest and dim*, so they encounter earth and get steamrollered by our advertising, conmen, and fads.
Fast forwarding half a century, I wonder if a Federation of Planets counterpart would have the memetic antibodies to resist assimilation via gamification dark patterns?
* this now seems less plausible to me than it did at the time; I'm guessing a large driver for developing (energy-intensive!) intelligence is spending much of your time around species that indicate one action but intend a different one.
- Keeps fertility high
- Keeps outward motivation up
- Protects from pleasure traps
Explaining parts 2&3 - imagine we create some sort of virtual device that one plugs in and it just basically gives you endless pleasure. If enough people would be interested in such a device, it could easily destroy a species. A rather odd 'great filter' of the Fermi Paradox. It's a species not going out with a bang or a whimper, but something more like a moan. Similarly, if people are just comfortable enough with what and where they are, then they may not have the motivation to carry out the massive work required to actually explore the stars.
Putting these altogether, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the first intelligent alien species we meet immediately begins trying to convert us to their God(s). Convert all the infidels of the universe seems like one sure fire solution for all the above. It also sets the stage for dystopia for those who choose not to acknowledge the grace of Qzar'dn the Almighty.
(and looking at r-selected vs K-selected species in general the inverse relationship seems to hold: greater intelligence correlates with lower litter size; compare frogs and rats)
It really limits the practically viable type of groups that we'd run into, and largely rejects the overwhelming majority of the tropes of sci-fi. Because most utopic visions in sci-fi assume a sort of post-scarcity universe where practically everything is available in practically infinite quantities. Yet exactly 0 (to my knowledge) have ever explained how this didn't just result in mass self indulgence driving an extinction level fertility crisis.
In fact the only episode I can even think of that hit on this was "The Game" [1] in Star Trek, and it ended up being some trite story about the addiction being used as a foreign weapon, and not as an naturally emergent self destructive behavior of a society that surpasses certain technical/material milestones.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_...
Until then I'm burning cycles on more pressing sci-fi inspired problems, like whether or not it is ethical to derive sustenance from Eloi if you just drink their blood (like the Maasai?) instead of eating them (like the Fore?).
So I mean imagine what that would look like. If you look at 6 couples and all have at least 1 child, with 2 of them having 2 - then it seems ridiculous to think about fertility issues as being critical. Yet, paradoxically, that's Japan - that is a ~1.33 fertility rate. And it means you are trending towards complete demographic collapse, all the while baby diapers are selling perfectly fine. And as that collapse kicks in, we'll likely see a vicious cycle - a rapidly shrinking economy and collapsing demography will likely trigger even lower fertility rates.
As for wireheading - I didn't want to nitpick that post, but that was not not quite what I am talking about. Rather, wireheading would be an example of the more general concept of some sort of a pleasure device. Given the state of fertility today, it's arguable that something as simple as the internet would suffice. All you need is something that people are content to engage in, in lieu of our natural biological instincts.
Tell you what, how about I tackle sustainable ethical Eloi husbandry, and you tackle the fertility crisis?
If you have a uterus, this should be no problem: you're not covered by Jockey Club rules, so AI is an option, and if you prefer live cover, you probably don't even need to pay for the jumps.
If you don't have a uterus, it'll be slightly more difficult, but I get 13m ghits for tradwife, so you ought to be able to find someone with a uterus who can be convinced to have 4-12 children?
Then there's always the A Boy and his Dog (1975) repopulation solution...
And Japan is largely just a window to the future for Western society at large. Fertility rates lag disaster by about 60 years. That's the time it takes for the first generation (give or take 20 years) with poor fertility rates to start dying off. Japan's fertility rate only collapsed about 40 years ago, so today is still the good times for them. Our fertility rate is only collapsing quite recently, so we still have a good number of decades ahead. It's like watching a train wreck unfold at a snail's pace, yet people nonetheless failing to move out of the way.
Just to visually elaborate upon this all, here [1] is Japan's population pyramid. You can see that right now it still looks at least somewhat reasonable, even though they're already having horrible outcomes. Now imagine what it will look like in ~20-30 years when it goes from a sort of vase shape to an outright upside down pyramid. You should be able to see that it means the population will start declining at an exponential rate. And that's what awaits the entire Western world if current trends aren't sharply reversed.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan#/media/F...
It's getting much better now, but they lost the better part of a generation, and they're still below where they should be. Their population pyramid is here [1] where you can see it all too clearly. That huge gaping maw that peaks at around 28 years old is due to fertility collapse in the 90s. I think it's also reasonable evidence for my 'vicious cycle' hypothesis.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#/media...
Rampant alcoholism would easily explain the gender imbalance at the older end: male and alcoholic tends to end poorly, especially if tobacco is involved on top.
On the gender imbalance, men just tend to die younger than women. As a funny (?) factoid, evolution/nature also somehow optimizes for this. There's about 107 boys born for every 100 girls. [1] But after we get done getting ourselves killed in all sorts of creative ways, you end up with a sex ratio that's almost exactly 50:50 across all ages; at older ages you end with a sex ratio skewed towards women.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_ratio
There is a term for this concept: wireheading[0][1].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction) [1]: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/wireheading
(I'd thought wikimedia used to have a wireheaded rat?)
True, but I wish they went with the Sisyphus one.
For context, they did a survey on the cover of the book, and one of them features Sisyphus, on top of the hill, with his boulder. I found it captures the topic of the book quite well.