[extropy-chat] ENOUGH already

[Charlie Stross]

On 25 Dec 2003, at 16:14, Matus wrote:

> To make this a more directly extropic conversation then, lets attempt 
> to
> define extropy.  Charlie asserts that how many people are alive (or 
> were
> killed) is a measurement of extropy.

No I don't. What I assert is that maximizing the entropy of the folks 
next door is not a positive contribution to extropy. Nor does diverting 
huge quantities of time, energy and resources into (a) displays of 
territorial primate aggression or (b) killing other people seem 
extropic.

Note that these are all framed as negatives. *Refraining* from killing 
people isn't extropic behaviour in and of itself; it's just that 
*killing* people is anti-extropian, as I see it.

Note also that I'm going to concede the self-defense argument before 
you even bring it up, on the grounds that self-defense is usually a 
lesser evil than whatever is being defended against. I would like to 
note, however, that a gram of prevention is worth a ton of 
after-the-fact self-defense.)

> So for an action (I'll drop 'war' out of the discussion and just leave
> it as an action) to be extropic it must result in a net increase in one
> or many of the above criteria.  But what if one part increases, and
> another decreases?  E.g. There are more intelligent people alive, but
> they have no capacity for improvement (strict oppressive statism),

I'm going to dispute the last three words in that extract. A point that 
doesn't get a lot of examination, and that we *really* need to think 
about, is that dictatorships and revolutionary governments seem to have 
a half-life of a decade or so, whereas democracies seem to endure for a 
much longer time.

Think I'm joking? Think again. The USSR -- with a solid ideological 
base _and_ an external threat, collapsed from inside in just 73 years. 
Its eastern European satellites didn't even last that long, falling 
apart in under 45 years. China is still nominally communist but today 
bears very little resemblance to the China of 1977. Spain under the 
butcher Franco lasted 38 years, while Portugal, Greece, and Serbia 
under Milosevic didn't make it to 20. Iran, at 24 years, seems to be in 
the grip of an internal power struggle between a democratic opposition 
and the ageing totalitarian thugs who seized power after the Shah. 
Myanmar under the SLORC is showing signs of unstability at the 20-year 
mark. Argentina (1976?-82) and Chile (1974-1987?) barely made it past 
their decade, and a lot of tyrannies break down before then.

The point I'd like to make is that even a stable dictatorship -- one 
which defeats its external and internal enemies and institutes a reign 
of repression -- finds it very difficult to cling on to power past the 
working life of the guy at the top. Successful dictatorships run by a 
party or cadre may last longer, but still tend to crumble as the 
youngest of the leading cadre grow elderly. The Soviet Union tried to 
establish an ideology-based system as solid as the Catholic Church ... 
and barely survived for an extra generation.

The evidence seems to support a hypothesis: governments stabilized by 
force (dictatorships) do not survive once the source of force (the will 
of the creators of the system) is withdrawn, and are therefore 
restricted by current human lifespans.

In contrast, democracies seem to be self-stabilizing and don't show the 
same degree of instability within the same time period as a human life. 
(Opponents who, in a dictatorship, would be definitively excluded from 
power can, in a democracy, aspire to join in the game and wait for a 
change in public opinion to bring them to power. Thus, opposition to 
the entire system of government is deprived of people who would 
potentially be its best activists.)

Whew. Long digression.

>  or
> conversely, what if there are fewer intelligent people around, but they
> had a much greater capacity for improvement, is that extropic?

Maybe, but it's also elitist -- and potentially dangerous. ("All those 
with an IQ of less than 180, into the computronium rendering hoppers!")


-- Charlie