http://www.whysean.com/2009/12/30/the-last-generation/ Sat, 23 Jul 2011 21:58:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.whysean.com/2009/12/30/the-last-generation/comment-page-1/#comment-19 Sean Hastings Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:19:52 +0000 http://www.whysean.com/?p=412#comment-19 I acknowledge that global disaster is possible, but I don't have a species wide global hedging strategy, nor would I encourage anyone to have one. Here is why: If I were to come up with one, I would have to get everyone (or some large fraction of the population) to follow my plan. That might be done by being very convincing and letting people act freely, or it might involve having people with guns forcing other people to act according to my plan. The more I need people with guns to subvert free human behavior, the higher the enforcement costs are, and the less likely the plan could ever produce any net benefit above and beyond these costs. In predicting a global crisis there will always be some level of uncertainty. The less the level of uncertainty about impending doom, the greater the expected value of implementing my plan and the more obviously right my plan will be to everyone else - thus causing voluntary compliance and reducing enforcement costs. At some level of obviousness, it is no longer just "my plan" - other people will have thought of it independently. At some higher level of obviousness, it is no longer even a "plan" - it is just what any normal sane rational person automatically does. So I don't need to have a plan. The overall belief of everyone - expressed in the feedback of a market of free action - will provide a probabilistically best possible solution. The only thing that might prevent the best possible course of action is some smaller set of people implementing their chosen courses of action on others through threat of violence - rather than through free behavioral feedback like boycott/shunning anyone whom they believe to be acting poorly. Where it is all carrot and no stick, free human behavior and trade among everyone acts to produce a prediction market with as good a guess at the future as any smaller group can ever expect to have. Or, put another way: Plan your own actions. Planning the actions of others just causes trouble.
If I were to come up with one, I would have to get everyone (or some large fraction of the population) to follow my plan. That might be done by being very convincing and letting people act freely, or it might involve having people with guns forcing other people to act according to my plan. The more I need people with guns to subvert free human behavior, the higher the enforcement costs are, and the less likely the plan could ever produce any net benefit above and beyond these costs.

In predicting a global crisis there will always be some level of uncertainty. The less the level of uncertainty about impending doom, the greater the expected value of implementing my plan and the more obviously right my plan will be to everyone else – thus causing voluntary compliance and reducing enforcement costs. At some level of obviousness, it is no longer just “my plan” – other people will have thought of it independently. At some higher level of obviousness, it is no longer even a “plan” – it is just what any normal sane rational person automatically does.

So I don’t need to have a plan. The overall belief of everyone – expressed in the feedback of a market of free action – will provide a probabilistically best possible solution. The only thing that might prevent the best possible course of action is some smaller set of people implementing their chosen courses of action on others through threat of violence – rather than through free behavioral feedback like boycott/shunning anyone whom they believe to be acting poorly.

Where it is all carrot and no stick, free human behavior and trade among everyone acts to produce a prediction market with as good a guess at the future as any smaller group can ever expect to have.

Or, put another way:

Plan your own actions. Planning the actions of others just causes trouble.]]>