Ends of History and Future Histories in the Longue Duree by Benjamin Pope

Fairly standard points, and I have tried to avoid broadly speaking making any particular arguments about economic socialism for these reasons, namely to avoid being bogged down.

Rent-seeking is a real issue in general, but I hope it's clear that there is relatively little scope for this for institutions designed predominantly to avoid international war. Institutions such as the UN and EU may be inefficient and sometimes act in perverse ways, but by and large they are not astonishingly expensive and have (arguably, but I will side with Pinker on this) largely prevented great power war for more than half a century. I think this is a completely different topic from economic regulation and I hope that you'll agree that at least as a minimum, institutions such as these both necessary and desirable for international peace. I'm not advocating North Korea here, I'm advocating an expansion of the scope of the existing, successful institutions in the prevention of global commons risks. The government doesn't have to control your thoughts, heaven forbid - but they do have to restrain you from nuclear war or unilateral geoengineering!

As for the self-regulation of economic activity, it seems to fly directly in the face of evidence to claim that letting individuals and corporations regulate themselves with regard to global risks has ever been effective in any way at all. The current crisis with regard to global warming, and long-term energy supply, illustrates this extremely well and it is very hard to see how anything other than international treaty can regulate such activities. Moreover on inequality, this is precisely and definitively what unregulated capitalism creates, and the current Piketty debate seems all the more remarkable because we've known this for two centuries now. If you don't want to create transhumanist inequalities, then wholly unrestrained markets are clearly a problem.

I'm very careful to avoid claiming anything about domestic politics because this really isn't the time or place and is a distraction from the topic of discussion. But in a broad sense, surely you agree that there is at least some minimal set of areas in which regulation is necessary beyond the familiar property rights. Existential threats such as great power war, resource depletion and climate change are things that we know full well cannot be addressed solely in terms of free markets, and regardless of the underlying economic system special consideration has to be given to these dangers as requiring international, independent oversight with the powers to police this.

Hi Daniel,

Climate change as present mid-range risks have it might not be, but very rapid climate change, widespread loss of ecosystem complexity, and simultaneous depletion of fossil fuels might leave a civilization both vulnerable to collapse, and lacking crucial resources on ~ million year timescales to resume its development after such a collapse. I refer in particular to Ian Morris' arguments that there is a logistic limit on the size and complexity of a non-industrial society, and that fossil fuels were the resource that helped Britain and then the world escape this. Without this puppy fat, and with a significantly degraded environment, it may be the case that the best we can do is achieve the Roman/Song Dynasty/Elizabethan scale of complexity and technology.

Notwithstanding Hanson's evident dislike of my arguments, I am quite convinced by at least one of his - that expansion is likely to favour a Darwinian frontier. I find it a bit hard to see why the high-fanout scenario posed by Stuart and Anders would get past internal factional disagreement in the launch phase - it really is an awful lot of effort to get going! - and I struggle to see such scenarios happening at least for humans. I do like the Fermi explanation it gives, though, so maybe there's more to it - perhaps there is some feature of economies in the space-exploration phase that does stabilize it against the perturbations that would derail such a venture; I just can't think of it at the moment.

Cheers,

Ben

You are very kind Joe! Thanks.

Ben

George,

I hoped I had been clearer - I am quite in favour of liberal institutions! I do feel that institutions which prevent violent conflict or economic developments leading to irreversible damage, however, are not inconsistent with this. A world free from all regulation is a world where freedoms for most people are dependent on a few powerful lobbies, of course. When stakes are so high - where conflict could literally destroy humanity - then the internationalization and rigid imposition of deterrents against war are the only things that can preserve a liberal society in other respects, let alone an open future.

Is that convincing?

Kind regards,

Ben