Peter Thiel recently argued that a slowdown in progress is overdetermined, and due in part to a widespread fear of progress itself. Should we be focusing on the mass psychology needed to support progress? What might help?
I think it’s true to some extent that the masses exert some demand for stagnation.
The way I’ve been thinking about it is that laws and norms are ways of solving iterated prisoner’s dilemmas. But because of loss aversion, there isn’t symmetry in the kinds of PDs that get solved this way. The “prevent something bad from happening” PDs get solved more than the “make something great happen” PDs do. (This is essentially the Nietzschean distinction between slave morality and master morality, applied to laws as well as morals.)
I don’t think the masses are ever going to change. Rather, I think elites need to compensate and be advocates for great things happening. There needs to be an elite conspiracy to elevate humanity far above where it would otherwise be willing to go.
A lot of policy change can happen with only elite consensus. In my work I focus a lot on small changes that need not concern most people, like a categorical exclusion for geothermal energy. Or changing how the Department of Energy does contracting for demonstration projects. I think a promising way to increase progress is to subtly remove a lot of small obstacles like this.
Maybe if we can get a few great, visible achievements it will soften mass opposition to some degree.
Peter Thiel recently argued that a slowdown in progress is overdetermined, and due in part to a widespread fear of progress itself. Should we be focusing on the mass psychology needed to support progress? What might help?
I think it’s true to some extent that the masses exert some demand for stagnation.
The way I’ve been thinking about it is that laws and norms are ways of solving iterated prisoner’s dilemmas. But because of loss aversion, there isn’t symmetry in the kinds of PDs that get solved this way. The “prevent something bad from happening” PDs get solved more than the “make something great happen” PDs do. (This is essentially the Nietzschean distinction between slave morality and master morality, applied to laws as well as morals.)
I don’t think the masses are ever going to change. Rather, I think elites need to compensate and be advocates for great things happening. There needs to be an elite conspiracy to elevate humanity far above where it would otherwise be willing to go.
A lot of policy change can happen with only elite consensus. In my work I focus a lot on small changes that need not concern most people, like a categorical exclusion for geothermal energy. Or changing how the Department of Energy does contracting for demonstration projects. I think a promising way to increase progress is to subtly remove a lot of small obstacles like this.
Maybe if we can get a few great, visible achievements it will soften mass opposition to some degree.