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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   30208 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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I don’t think there’s any reason to see Elon’s ambition as zero sum. More than one person can reach mars.

Sorry what I mean by zero-sum is that it’s a “telic” zero-sum status game. The motivating force behind Elon Musk isn’t just “humans will inevitably reach Mars”, but that Elon is the one championing this species-significant event. He is involved in it, others are not; the fate of consciousness rests on his company’s shoulders. This is motivating for everyone at SpaceX: they at the company are the ones forever altering the trajectory of humanity, in their daily course of action. But this isn’t grounds for motivation for everyone else. In fact, this narrative kind of reduces everyone else’s motivation for perfecting their life. If they agree with Elon’s narrative, then their own boring “Uber for pet antibiotics” company life is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. They are just some person not at SpaceX.

I suppose you can try to enlarge Elonic ambitions so that it includes all of humanity. The janitor who stays late at Starbucks is doing his part for humanity, because he served the road repair crew of someone who might one day drive to SpaceX to repair a heating system. I don’t think this will be as compelling. I’m not criticizing Elon’s own mindset here, but noting that promoting this mindset is probably not beneficial and enlarging it is probably impossible.

Not everything has to be about status. I think Elon is actually literally a fanatical true believer in the cause of humanity spreading through the universe. I don't think he cares about his status except insofar as it influences his actual goal.

All humans and primates are motivated by status. It’s not something we can opt out of. Whether we decide to care about our status consciously or not, our actions revolve around our status in groups due to millions of years of evolution. If he is a true believer, somehow willing himself into true belief, it’s still a belief that comes with the highest possible increase in status per his worldview. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing for Elon, only that it can’t be generalizable to humanity at large, and in fact may be pernicious if attempted.

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