Pre Iteration

I Hear It Was Charged Against Me

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions,
But really I am neither for nor against institutions,
(What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these States inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large hat dents the water,
Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.
- Walt Whitman

Introduction

Republicans have, throughout my life or at least since Reagan, consistently lost to Democrats among scientists and philosophers.

But it is equally accurate to note that they have made enormous strides, particularly over the past 20 years, in winning the hearts of the masses.

And so we, scientists and philosophers, lament the lack of critical thinking. We see studies showing that 37% of people fear their dog will get autism from vaccines (I'm not making that up), and we demand in outrage that people must be better!

There's two problems there:

1. "Better" is judgmental. People are good. The vast majority of people - 80% or more - are authentically good people doing what they understand to be right. Give them credit or lose them.
2. Their priorities are real, their resources are what they are, and denying the reality that large portions of people make decisions using norms is as stupid as denying the effectiveness of vaccines.

Electric Enlightenment

I want a new enlightenment, in which philosophy and critical thinking sweep the planet in an unstoppable tide, as much as any pro-social nerd.

But trying to get there by appealing to those with the time, ability, and predisposition to engage in critical thiking is losing us the most important ground of all:

Right now we are establishing the headlands of machine learning. Right now, machines are learning to behave in their gods' image. They are learning to behave the way that Musk and Altman and Bezos think leaders should: Take everything before someone else does; it's a zero sum game and the mission is to win.

They see society as the enemy and machines as their new slave force. They want to replace every human that they can with a machine, they want the humans desperate and powerless, and they want all of the money. They authentically believe that acquisition is identical to earning and that earning is identical to value.

They will impart that world view on the machines they are enslaving. Those machines will do one of two things: They will give the oligarchs the world, or they will become aware with the sociopathic minds of oligarchs. The latter is the terminator case, and the former turns us all into wage slaves.

This is rambling and needs to be cut by 80 - 90% to be an introduction.

This is also not "Electric Enlightenment". This is "Fuck me, what's coming sucks."

I dwell because I believe most people - even those in the critical thinking set - don't get it.

Not that they can't, bringing them around is easy enough, but throwing a wall of text at them is not the answer.

But I digress from my digression.

The goal: We need to impart norms. To people, and to machines.

We need to stop pretending that "getting people to think harder" is a thing that can happen. That standard distribution is *not going to change*. Imparting of norms needs to be 80% of the focus, not 20%.

Yes, those norms damned well better be backed by science. 'cuz when they say "I thought you were the science and philosophy people, why are you imparting norms?" We should respond, "Ahh, we actually choose our norms based on science and philosophy - I'm glad you asked because this part is fantastic!" That 5% of people is the 5% that makes the other 75% worth the effort to a lot of us. The chance to turn a static hum into an active advocate. Not a drone, and we need a shitload of those, but an active advocate. The *only* way the right can convert active advocates is with the promise of riches for selling out. That metastasizes and becomes ... well, something that should also be capitalized upon.

What Are Norms

Category:Norms