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by blind_tomato 241 days ago
> Until the plurality of humans on the earth understand that human exceptionalism is no longer something to be taking for granted (and shouldn’t have been) there’s never going to be effective global governance of technology.

Could you elaborate more on this? FYI fully agreed on the former sentences.

2 comments

It’s taken for granted that humans are the best choice for how to accomplish tasks.

The tasks humans are best at now are different than 10kya.

The world changes, new human jobs are made and humans collectively move up the abstraction chain. Schumpeter called this creative destruction and “capital + technology” is the transition function.

At the point where “capital + technology” does not need a human anymore and that will happen (if not in my lifetime then at least in the next 500 years) then there will be nothing more to argue for or retain.

So unless humanity recognizes this and decides to organize as humans (not as europeans, or alabamans or han etc…) then this is the only possible outcome.

Me personally, I don’t think that’s mathematically/energetically possible for humans to do because we’re not biologically capable of that level of eusocial coordination.

“So unless humanity recognizes this and decides to organize as humans (not as europeans, or alabamans or han etc…) then this is the only possible outcome.”

Why do you think this is the only possible outcome? Aren’t we already organized as humans? Won’t people revolt when this really hits the fan?

No we’re not organized as humans

Revolt is a transitional process only, from one structure to another, it doesn’t change the fundamental math of the fact that humans are not eusocial

So humans are just running around as unorganized individuals, hermits, living in small tents in the woods by themselves. There are no borders or countries or associations of humans. We are all just unorganized. Really?

Either your definition of organized is different than mine or this is a silly conversation.

Yes clearly it’s different definition

Organization means everyone is in the same singular organizational identity - eusocially

The closest formal group seems to be the European Union - but that’s still infinitely far away from what’s needed to survive

Humans either figure out how to form a biological superorganism or go extinct to non-human intelligence

This isn’t happening tomorrow, but on century time scales, it’s obviously the only likely trajectory

OK. Now I understand where you’re coming from. You are using an analogy to insect groups with the term eusocial, which is defined as “cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups.”

Not sure I would use the word organized to describe this though. It actually sounds more like hunter-gatherer society / commune / family. It does seem unlikely that this could happen on a global scale though. It’s more likely to occur in smaller groups, because without some familiarity between the people, they’re unlikely to open up with such personal activities like child rearing.

Anyway, I like your idea. Humans coming together to ensure fairness is going to be necessary. I just don’t think it’s a realistic expectation to expect this at the global scale.

What may be feasible is for people with similar occupations joining together in global labor unions for leverage against the corporations. These unions could have standards for how workers interface with corporations, especially global corporations utilizing AI and or other technologies that impact society in a potentially harmful way.

As some Australian video game character once said: “as long as there are two people in the world, someone is going to want someone dead”
The bacteria that aren't antibacterial resistant eventually get replaced by those that are.

Maybe you are alcohol, gambling, and pornography resistant but maybe you have friends and family that aren't. Are you picking up their slack?

What circumstances make "going Amish" look, not just reasonable, but necessary for survival?