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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   37122 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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Why do the elites keep the rest of us around? Net positive contribution to the economy and fear for their lives. AGI negates both of those reason. And, as a pithy right winger phrase goes, “You are the carbon they want to reduce.” If the things continue on the current trajectory, I expect human population to be reduced millionfold by the end of the century. To be maximally cringeworthy, I propose imagining how the backstory of To The Stars would have went if there had been no magical girls in the setting.

Have you actually met any elites who want this? I haven't. One thing extremely rich people seem to want to buy in abundance is something that makes them look and feel like a good person.

I haven't met anybody in the top ten thousand period. I don't even know how many of them are even publicly known outside of their circle. But it's easily extrapolated from the dominant narratives, general human nature, and the traits which are selected for even in the people with far less power.

Have you actually met any elites who want this?

I've met some who will say that we need the population reduced after a bit of conversation, just not openly.

I've met plenty who want no children "for the planet" and will say you're irresponsible for having any.

These are dwarfed by the number of people who hold more conventional views, but I don't know what the elite proportions are, and even less what they are weighted by how powerful people are.

Bill Gates, for all the overtly conspiratorial memes around him has always been pretty open about his vaccine advocacy being in large part about lowering the population in Africa through demographic transition.

The whole meme around the "population bomb" is less popular than it used to be and climate is the new prestige totem, but it clearly was big at some point (China's policies were in part built on it) and I wouldn't be surprised if the memes combine given they are compatible.

Median wages in the US are quite high and consumer spending is a major economic force. Sure, there are a lot of people with negative effective tax rates, but even those people contribute value though passive consumption or other engagement, like watching/clicking ads. So right now there is a strong incentive to keep humans around. At some point wages will have to fall. An AI-enabled post scarcity economy and high median wages cannot coexist. I don't foresee this happening, at least not in any timeframe where it would matter to us, but its hard to articulate why in any concrete sense.

I'm not talking about the map of effective tax rates and such, but about the underlying territory. Currently somebody with power over a hundred million people has more production than somebody with one million (ceteris paribus, which is never paribus in real life, but you get my meaning). Soon the former will be worse off as somebody who needs to feed and shelter one hundred times more useless eaters.

agree, they are are not only not united, but i think people overestimate how much individual elites care. people overestimate the enthusiasm or doggedness of elites, particularly government elites. As much as elites may dislike trump, they do not seem to have the wherewithal to make an example out of him for once and for all.

Yes, literally one man or maybe one man and his family existing is also a scenario I find plausible. And however epsilon is the incentive to make everybody else extinct, it will always be greater than the negative incentive to keep them alive.

P.S.: in my likeliest scenario you personally are quite plausibly among those that are left, so I don't think taking anything you say at face value would do me any good.

For me it's one family or one man. Radical scenarios like this imply decisive strategic advantages and probably a nuclear war as a last throw of the dice by whoever's falling behind. Why would whoever's in first place let any of their fellow elites catch up?

P.S.: in my likeliest scenario you personally are quite plausibly among those that are left, so I don't think taking anything you say at face value would do me any good.

I'm curious, what does your likeliest scenario look like, particularly in terms of which people are left and which people aren't? If it's a millionfold reduction in human population, that'd mean a population of around 8,000, and I'd be surprised if anyone using this forum were one of them outside of just pure dumb luck. But I don't know the details of the mechanism to get there from here, so obviously I'm missing something.

That was not a precise number. The idea is that those who possess capital will be able to instantiate AGI and control productive output and meaningful means of violence, and those who don't possess — won't be able. The mechanism will be locking out the have nots out of the economic system entirely, giving meager hand outs until the pretext (genuinely believed! Human psyche is useful like that) to wipe them out is presented. And cimarafa is a daughter of a billionaire? Multimillionaire? Somebody who will be able to claim a share of the ownership of the post-scarcity abundance in any case.

Elites need people to feel elite to as well. I highly doubt they’ll kill us all. What is your proposed mechanism for this happening?

With birth rates continuing their decline pretty much uniformly across the globe it shouldn't take much more than a few cultural nudges and AI led psyops to accelerate an already extant trend.

This is a good point actually. Depopulation may well happen but if it’s because everyone is rich and happy I don’t see the issue?

Because everyone is not happy. Nowhere close.

I don't think being brainwashed into sterility by the ruling class so they can hoard more resources is much of a 'good end', even if we get good enough at the brainwashing that people enthusiastically enjoy it.

Do not leave your womb unattended at any time. Unlicensed pregnancies are subject to search and seizure. Thank you for your cooperation

I find it hard to believe that there won't be a population equilibrium somewhere beyond the decline. The jury is still out on what exactly the fifth stage of the demographic transition looks like.

There may be an equilibrium point, but it could easily be at a total population level of a billion or less given that rates are continuing to drop with no floor in sight. Wireheading and other tech induced sterilizers can outrun biology for a long time, possibly forever if the tech gets good enough.

There may be an equilibrium point, but it could easily be at a total population level of a billion or less given that rates are continuing to drop with no floor in sight.

That's about how many people there were in 1800; 1800-level civilization plus modern technology doesn't sound that bad?

It does if me or any of my prospective descendants aren't part of that billion or so.

The steps you would take to ensure this are probably going to be net beneficial for you and them regardless, soooo....

It is, my concern is if these weapons end up getting deployed as population control flypaper I'd (or my descendants would) end up swept into the chaff pile, which depending on how low the minimum human pop gets could be hard to beat.

More comments

The social status aspect is true, I concede. Pre-2020 my go-to example of one of the few future remaining employment opportunities was live-action Titanic reenactment (the event, not the movie). But in the age of the degrowth I no longer believe that the desire to be better than dominates over the indignation of expending resources on the lessers.

As for the mechanism, why, Fully Automated Space Holocaust, of course! Imagine how much more efficient the Final Solution could have been if engineered and carried out by an AI! Or, to be less glib, but more pathetically nerdy, the way it went in the story from my link: a barest pittance handed out to the useless eaters of the non-capital owning class, discontent, violent response, riots in response to the response, outright massacre.

Even an utter pittance would be more than enough to satisfy the average Joe if we get true AGI, even without self recursive improvement. We’re talking insane amounts of wealth here.

A two square meter sleeping pad and nutrient sludge for billions of proles is energy and matter that are uselessly diverted from achieving the goals of people with the private keys to the AGIs.

We're already there. Anyone with a smartphone and air conditioning has more wealth than anyone who lived before the year 1900.

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