Humans Must Help Humanity Steer Itself by Jeff Alstott

Hi Robin,

Thanks for the inquiry! As you may recall, you and I discussed these very issues at my birthday party. I appreciated you bringing up then the activities of the traditional fields of economics/history/political science/etc., because it led me to further consider them and advance my thinking. Accordingly, these fields are addressed in the essay, under the section heading "Sub-Civilizations". The text is:

The most obvious reservoirs of surrogate systems are from such fields as political science and economics, which specifically study the behavior of human systems. These fields have the advantage of working with empirical systems. Data collection has historically been difficult, but is getting increasingly easier. Most of this research, however, has examined individual countries or markets within global civilization, and does not explicitly study the behavior of civilization as a whole. For some features, this distinction does not matter; a global society functions much like a smaller one. Frequently, however, "more is different" (Anderson 1972). Large aggregates of states do indeed have different dynamics from those of smaller polities (e.g. the United Kingdom is not simply a large London). This is evidence that the larger global system is functionally distinct from its smaller subsystems, just like the human body is functionally distinct from its smaller cells. We must recognize dynamics that are the same on the global level as on the smaller level and use the knowledge gained from studying individual countries and markets. But we must also recognize which features are different, and explicitly study the behavior of human civilization as a whole.

That single paragraph obviously does not close the book on how existing research directions should be incorporated and leveraged for improving civilization as a whole, but it does highlight how they are not necessarily focused on the suggested task (improving how the complete system of humanity steers itself).

Thank you for your kind words, Ross!

I absolutely agree that competition can yield unintended results when the competitors can affect each other. In that case, as you say, a winning strategy can be to make other competitors lose, as opposed to make yourself win. I actually noted this possibility in an early version of the essay, but took it out.

For some investigations, the problem is not so relevant to our present task. For example, if we simulate surrogate societies to identify "fit" organizational structures for humanity, then those simulated societies will not be interacting with each other. Thus, the surrogate societies will only succeed or fail on their ability to to more "honestly" win the competition.

Yet there is another area where the issue you raise could indeed be a problem: sub-civilizations. We can try to find good structures/strategies for humanity by studying countries and smaller subdivisions of civilization. However, we must be sure that whatever "good" structures we find do not only perform well because they push others down, or have other sub-civilizations on which to feed. If we implement such strategies on a global civilization level, they likely won't work, as there are no other global civilizations on which to rely!

It is because of issues like this that I argue we must investigate the functioning of global civilization as a whole, and not solely rely on sub-civilizations. I do hope to take up your challenge and perform these investigations. Thank you for the vote of confidence!

As an example of one way in which sub-civilization dynamics could look different from civilization-scale dynamics, consider Ross Cevenst's comment above and my response.

Thank you for your eloquent analysis, Michael!

"There is no heaven, so to speak; only a limbo of 'continuous effort' and a hell of final extinction. Isn't this the core problem of modernity?"

It certainly isn't the most pleasant feature of reality! If things were otherwise, we would have a lot less work to do, and probably fewer essay contests. But if this is the shape of reality (as I assert it is), then we must acknowledge that fact and deal with it as best we can.

You suggest this is a problem of "modernity". What do you mean when you say "modernity" in this context?

Thank you for your comments, Ajay! I will look at your essay promptly.

"Is this because the 'right' future for a society is different from the 'right' future for individuals?

I think society exists for the benefit of individuals rather than the other way around."

There are differences between physics and ethics; what is happening and what we would like to happen. We can talk about how the system of humanity is behaving and we can still value individuals' happiness (or not!). I myself value the happiness of individuals, but one does not need to agree with that value in order to consider my analysis of how humanity behaves. As long as one has a sufficiently complex goal for humanity's behavior, then methods like those discussed in this essay will likely be necessary for reaching that goal. For example, your own goal: it is nontrivial to design a society that persistently and robustly benefits individual humans. But using the methods I discuss, we can repeatedly find and implement designs for society that accomplish that goal better and better.

Thank you for commenting here, George, as it alerted me to your excellent essay. I have made my comments on your essay on your entry page.

"I'm not sure that "self-steering" is the most accurate way of describing what happens when self-organizing behaviors emerge in a complex system. I think it is more accurate to say that it is an evolutionary process where small changes compete against each other - and the ones that are most efficient survive and propagate."

It depends on the system in question! Competition is a very powerful force, and many, many effective systems use it. But it is not necessary; I gave the example of an authoritarian business, which does not use any competition internally. You are correct that a more effective business will likely have internal competition of ideas (e.g. a waiter in the restaurant could have an idea, and that idea be so good that it overturns the owner's idea).

You say could also say that the authoritarian business is not a "complex system", or is not "self-organizing". I am happy to grant that, though the meaning is imprecise. My day job is in research fields that are very concerned about defining such terms as "self-organizing", and as I understand it not clear, unambiguous, rigorous definition of the term has yet been reached. "Self-steering" is, of course, no better. You could read my essay with "self-organizing" replacing "self-steering" and that would be fine by me. The important point is that humanity is organizing/steering itself, and we individual humans can take certain actions to to improve that process. I have outlined some actions in this essay, and I feel that your essay also points out an important action we can take.

Thanks for your comment!

Jeff