I've always felt that the solution to Fermi's paradox was the simplest answer: We are too young and far away from everyone else. But I have to say thinking about the possibility of every alien government inevitably devolving into perpetual fascism tickles my inner cosmic horror fan.
Fascinating video. I'd not seen the concepts of AI safety and dystopian potential of civilisations united this before - despite AI safety being largely motivated by fear of the dystopian potential of the inevitable AI singularity. Gives me a lot to think about.
There are a lot of problems with thus argument imo. I will focus on the most jarring: Societies are not selected by the quality of life within. If anything this is a small influence. Societies are selected by their ability to expand and sustain themself, aswell as their likelihood to arise from the conditions of previous societies. This is almost tautological. In a way they just follow natural selection. There is no reason to assume dictatorial and oppresive governments are particularily bad at this. History shows quite the opposite. Keeping things the same isnt a great strategy either because it means lagging behind competing societies. Also I think there is a far more likely solution to the Fermi-paradox: Advanced alien civilizations spaceships fly close to the speed of light. This would mean that space is partitioned in colonised space and uncolonised space that has no signal of colonised space because of the light speed limit. The fraction of space that wouldnt be colonised but has signals of colonised space would be quite small and it would therefore be unlikely for earth to reside within.
We are looking at this form two perspectives You this form a darwinian perspective. Societies will have whatever governments make it more likely for them to survive, and dystopias not better at this than other governments. That much is true The reward function of life is the survival of the species However my point is that governments have their own reward function, separate from life. Their reward function is the continuation of the government My point is that this new reward function may influence the behavior of governments so that they try to create a situation with as little change as possible In such a situation the survival of the species is guaranteed, so life doesn't care, it's reward function is met, and also the government will not be changed, so it's reward function is also met
@@HighlyEntropicMind Thanks for the reply, but I am still unconvinced. I still think governments would follow almost the same rules as natural selection as life would. Also keeping things the same, again, isnt a good strategy for survival if you compete with other governments. At some point you will be outpaced technologicaly and lose a war or something, thus natural selection should favor those governments that engage in technological development (dictactorial or not). This has been true for all of modern history. The worst dictatirships have been quite dinamic, warmongering and developing tech. Look at the Nazis or Stalins SU. On the other hand there is no reason to assume even if stability was adventagous that democracies wouldnt pursue it. Even the population should be in favor of it. After all why rock the boat with wars or dangerous tech if your quality of life is good and you are used to a lifestyle. Conserving attitudes like that are widespread. So tldr I dont see any difference between dystopias and utopias on the topic of stability vs dynamics.
The most likely scenario is dysgenics and a terminal collapse including massive ecological and peak resource problems ie we mined/extracted all the cheap stuff. And evolution is occurring in a bad direction at a rate so fast I would make your head spin Whoever harnesses the largest polity wins out, and so despite the promises of democracy, states have only become more centralized and less free not the other way around. And the soft-power and decentralized ever shifting power structure in democracy is much harder to dethrone than the explicit hard power of previous regimes. In a democracy real power can always be obfuscated, we don't really have a ruling class, right? While in other states the people who are supposed to do certain things actually do them, and corruption is much more straightforward. In liberal democracies there is an insane amount of corruption, but it's labeled something else, so it's all good
I love this thought experiment. Though I think there are a few things that are incorrect. 1) If you don't take into account all the dominant factors then you have no chance of describing the problem correctly. And if you can't accurately describe the problem, whatever you do to fix it is wrong, because you're trying to fix something else, not the problem. The main problem with governments is not misalignment. It is the manifestation of human nature. We evolved in an environment that genetically engineered us to think of our own welfare. To gather and conserve our individual resources to survive. More importantly, to compete with everything else for those resources. With the evolution of society, those instincts have evolved to be the gathering of personal societal resources. Money and power. The misalignment of governing bodies has not arisen from the application of techniques unthought of. The misalignment is the result of a moral structure in transition and decay. Transiting between our biological, selfish drives to relatively new social, unselfish drives. And any organism, no matter the substrate, that evolves, or is taught by something that evolved, in an adversarial environment will have similar drives. 2) The "planet locked" idea of a dystopian society is only achievable if the society has a planetary government. Any competition will drive the societal expansion into space in an effort to gain power over the other. Take the space race as an example. Which is presently heating up again as the dominant political power is losing its dominance. 3) You seem to be jumping between describing the managing of external influences and the managing internal influences interchangeably. Which are two separate, non-interchangable things. For a dystopia, you don't need to control the influences outside your dystopia. You only need to create a moloch system inside your dystopia to manage the perception of outside influences and to keep your residents in line. 1984. Right thought. Right speech. I loved this idea. But I think that in ignoring the biological and social drives inherent in the system, you misdiagnose the problem and therefore draw erroneous conclusions. ...unless, as I stated previously, it is a one world government. 🤫 Like the WHO is trying to become with their Pandemic Agreement. 🤫😂
I was indeed thinking of a united world government, sorta If there are many nations that compete with each other one can become dystopic but the others not, like North Korea today However it could be possible for a world to be divided into a few entities, all of which become dystopic. They could still compete, but they would preserve this new status quo, like in 1984 And of course if there was a single entity ruling the world it could become dystopic and there would be no entity to challenge it
Great video, it added new ways to think for me. But even without getting to the same conclusions to the problem of dystopias (which I agree), I have the solution. We are already hiveminds, each individual is already a government by itself with its own reward system, we call it homeostasis and we take care of it with hygiene. That way we could call governments proto-individuals. An entire planet could not survive as a single individual because it's too plural and would compete with itself to the point of fragmentation because it will have different objectives.
To get out to space we would need an objective that would unite us entirely. That objective is simple and clear: we would not survive from a meteor hit like that of the dinosaurs. We need redundancy. First we would compete for resources on space for riches here on Earth, but a global advanced civilization a dystopian global government would collapse from the fear of global extinction coming from space
I don’t think governments are optimizing for the “don’t change” reward function. I think the individuals in those governments are optimizing for the “don’t change” function because they are following their own incentives to seek job stability, retain power and income. So, yea, overall I do think what he’s positing here is true but the reward function is a product of individual incentives in aggregate.
Good vid and I agree with your logic. Though something just doesn't seem quite right and I don't buy it. While a lack of change is very much a key feature of a dystopia, I don't think that it is the cause of a dystopia, if that makes sense... So the reward function (preserving what keeps a government active and removing what does not) doesn't necessarily have to result in a dystopian outcome. Sometimes you can have a permanent and unchanging feature of a government, like a constitution, that makes it harder for society to fall into a dystopia, rather than easier. But I do think you're right that it could be unintended outcomes of reward functions that lead to civilisational decline. I think probably the biggest answer to the Fermi paradox, is how wrong we all were about the internet. Optimism was abound about how everyone would have access to information from anywhere at any time... But that has opened the door to disinformation peddlers being easily accessible too. And when you combine that, with AI algorithms that make their reward function exclusively things like watch-time and click-through, rather than informational content or accuracy, then you get a nasty combination, since people will click on what feeds their bias rather than what is educational and accurate. And I think this is probably more along the lines of what causes dystopias to arise, or destroy civilisations. Especially since politicians will see that they can gain support by throwing red meat as it were and stoking division and using paranoia and sensationalism to motivate people to vote for them, using these reward systems that are ultimately flawed because human psychology is ultimately flawed. It is still along the lines of what you were saying... glitches, unintended consequences that couldn't be foreseen (or worse, are ignored for profit.) Systems that we design to make our life better, but wind up making everything worse (overall at least.) I also think it means the trope of "AI breaking its programming" is a bit silly. Because an AI doesn't need to break its programming to be dangerous. It can be dangerous by doing exactly what it was programmed to do...
Basically... to put it another way. The same phenomenon that causes the History Channel to abandon its educational integrity, and make schlock programmes about "Ancient Aliens..." Could be the exact same phenomenon that explains why "Ancient Aliens" haven't visited us yet.
what about evolution? if we talk about such long time scales, we have to incued it. That means, if a sosciety gets to the technology to completly control genetics befor a global dystopia arises, this dystopia could rule for ever (given the dystopia arises befor they leave there plant) but if not, then the variable of mutation is in place and the dystopia might end. So its like two competing technologys, which one comes first could determine a lot
I've always felt that the solution to Fermi's paradox was the simplest answer: We are too young and far away from everyone else.
But I have to say thinking about the possibility of every alien government inevitably devolving into perpetual fascism tickles my inner cosmic horror fan.
Fascinating video. I'd not seen the concepts of AI safety and dystopian potential of civilisations united this before - despite AI safety being largely motivated by fear of the dystopian potential of the inevitable AI singularity. Gives me a lot to think about.
There are a lot of problems with thus argument imo. I will focus on the most jarring: Societies are not selected by the quality of life within. If anything this is a small influence. Societies are selected by their ability to expand and sustain themself, aswell as their likelihood to arise from the conditions of previous societies. This is almost tautological. In a way they just follow natural selection. There is no reason to assume dictatorial and oppresive governments are particularily bad at this. History shows quite the opposite. Keeping things the same isnt a great strategy either because it means lagging behind competing societies.
Also I think there is a far more likely solution to the Fermi-paradox: Advanced alien civilizations spaceships fly close to the speed of light. This would mean that space is partitioned in colonised space and uncolonised space that has no signal of colonised space because of the light speed limit. The fraction of space that wouldnt be colonised but has signals of colonised space would be quite small and it would therefore be unlikely for earth to reside within.
We are looking at this form two perspectives
You this form a darwinian perspective. Societies will have whatever governments make it more likely for them to survive, and dystopias not better at this than other governments. That much is true
The reward function of life is the survival of the species
However my point is that governments have their own reward function, separate from life. Their reward function is the continuation of the government
My point is that this new reward function may influence the behavior of governments so that they try to create a situation with as little change as possible
In such a situation the survival of the species is guaranteed, so life doesn't care, it's reward function is met, and also the government will not be changed, so it's reward function is also met
@@HighlyEntropicMind Thanks for the reply, but I am still unconvinced. I still think governments would follow almost the same rules as natural selection as life would. Also keeping things the same, again, isnt a good strategy for survival if you compete with other governments. At some point you will be outpaced technologicaly and lose a war or something, thus natural selection should favor those governments that engage in technological development (dictactorial or not). This has been true for all of modern history. The worst dictatirships have been quite dinamic, warmongering and developing tech. Look at the Nazis or Stalins SU. On the other hand there is no reason to assume even if stability was adventagous that democracies wouldnt pursue it. Even the population should be in favor of it. After all why rock the boat with wars or dangerous tech if your quality of life is good and you are used to a lifestyle. Conserving attitudes like that are widespread.
So tldr I dont see any difference between dystopias and utopias on the topic of stability vs dynamics.
The most likely scenario is dysgenics and a terminal collapse including massive ecological and peak resource problems ie we mined/extracted all the cheap stuff. And evolution is occurring in a bad direction at a rate so fast I would make your head spin
Whoever harnesses the largest polity wins out, and so despite the promises of democracy, states have only become more centralized and less free not the other way around. And the soft-power and decentralized ever shifting power structure in democracy is much harder to dethrone than the explicit hard power of previous regimes. In a democracy real power can always be obfuscated, we don't really have a ruling class, right? While in other states the people who are supposed to do certain things actually do them, and corruption is much more straightforward. In liberal democracies there is an insane amount of corruption, but it's labeled something else, so it's all good
I love this thought experiment. Though I think there are a few things that are incorrect.
1) If you don't take into account all the dominant factors then you have no chance of describing the problem correctly. And if you can't accurately describe the problem, whatever you do to fix it is wrong, because you're trying to fix something else, not the problem.
The main problem with governments is not misalignment. It is the manifestation of human nature. We evolved in an environment that genetically engineered us to think of our own welfare. To gather and conserve our individual resources to survive. More importantly, to compete with everything else for those resources. With the evolution of society, those instincts have evolved to be the gathering of personal societal resources. Money and power.
The misalignment of governing bodies has not arisen from the application of techniques unthought of. The misalignment is the result of a moral structure in transition and decay. Transiting between our biological, selfish drives to relatively new social, unselfish drives.
And any organism, no matter the substrate, that evolves, or is taught by something that evolved, in an adversarial environment will have similar drives.
2) The "planet locked" idea of a dystopian society is only achievable if the society has a planetary government. Any competition will drive the societal expansion into space in an effort to gain power over the other. Take the space race as an example. Which is presently heating up again as the dominant political power is losing its dominance.
3) You seem to be jumping between describing the managing of external influences and the managing internal influences interchangeably. Which are two separate, non-interchangable things. For a dystopia, you don't need to control the influences outside your dystopia. You only need to create a moloch system inside your dystopia to manage the perception of outside influences and to keep your residents in line. 1984. Right thought. Right speech.
I loved this idea. But I think that in ignoring the biological and social drives inherent in the system, you misdiagnose the problem and therefore draw erroneous conclusions. ...unless, as I stated previously, it is a one world government. 🤫 Like the WHO is trying to become with their Pandemic Agreement. 🤫😂
I was indeed thinking of a united world government, sorta
If there are many nations that compete with each other one can become dystopic but the others not, like North Korea today
However it could be possible for a world to be divided into a few entities, all of which become dystopic. They could still compete, but they would preserve this new status quo, like in 1984
And of course if there was a single entity ruling the world it could become dystopic and there would be no entity to challenge it
@@HighlyEntropicMind Nice. I didn't consider the multiple dystopian governments possibility. 👍
Great video, it added new ways to think for me. But even without getting to the same conclusions to the problem of dystopias (which I agree), I have the solution. We are already hiveminds, each individual is already a government by itself with its own reward system, we call it homeostasis and we take care of it with hygiene. That way we could call governments proto-individuals. An entire planet could not survive as a single individual because it's too plural and would compete with itself to the point of fragmentation because it will have different objectives.
To get out to space we would need an objective that would unite us entirely. That objective is simple and clear: we would not survive from a meteor hit like that of the dinosaurs. We need redundancy. First we would compete for resources on space for riches here on Earth, but a global advanced civilization a dystopian global government would collapse from the fear of global extinction coming from space
Wait, we're our own great filter?
Always have been.
kinda
But what about the Borg?
I don’t think governments are optimizing for the “don’t change” reward function. I think the individuals in those governments are optimizing for the “don’t change” function because they are following their own incentives to seek job stability, retain power and income. So, yea, overall I do think what he’s positing here is true but the reward function is a product of individual incentives in aggregate.
Good vid and I agree with your logic. Though something just doesn't seem quite right and I don't buy it. While a lack of change is very much a key feature of a dystopia, I don't think that it is the cause of a dystopia, if that makes sense...
So the reward function (preserving what keeps a government active and removing what does not) doesn't necessarily have to result in a dystopian outcome. Sometimes you can have a permanent and unchanging feature of a government, like a constitution, that makes it harder for society to fall into a dystopia, rather than easier.
But I do think you're right that it could be unintended outcomes of reward functions that lead to civilisational decline. I think probably the biggest answer to the Fermi paradox, is how wrong we all were about the internet. Optimism was abound about how everyone would have access to information from anywhere at any time... But that has opened the door to disinformation peddlers being easily accessible too. And when you combine that, with AI algorithms that make their reward function exclusively things like watch-time and click-through, rather than informational content or accuracy, then you get a nasty combination, since people will click on what feeds their bias rather than what is educational and accurate. And I think this is probably more along the lines of what causes dystopias to arise, or destroy civilisations. Especially since politicians will see that they can gain support by throwing red meat as it were and stoking division and using paranoia and sensationalism to motivate people to vote for them, using these reward systems that are ultimately flawed because human psychology is ultimately flawed. It is still along the lines of what you were saying... glitches, unintended consequences that couldn't be foreseen (or worse, are ignored for profit.) Systems that we design to make our life better, but wind up making everything worse (overall at least.)
I also think it means the trope of "AI breaking its programming" is a bit silly. Because an AI doesn't need to break its programming to be dangerous. It can be dangerous by doing exactly what it was programmed to do...
Basically... to put it another way.
The same phenomenon that causes the History Channel to abandon its educational integrity, and make schlock programmes about "Ancient Aliens..."
Could be the exact same phenomenon that explains why "Ancient Aliens" haven't visited us yet.
what about evolution? if we talk about such long time scales, we have to incued it. That means, if a sosciety gets to the technology to completly control genetics befor a global dystopia arises, this dystopia could rule for ever (given the dystopia arises befor they leave there plant) but if not, then the variable of mutation is in place and the dystopia might end. So its like two competing technologys, which one comes first could determine a lot
You may not realize it
, but you are actually describing the United States during its unipolar moment.
this is more or less what is happening with the government of Argentina right now haha