[extropy-chat] Economic consensus on immigration

[John B]

Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 23:41:43 +0200 (MEST)
From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa at nada.kth.se>

Lee Corbin wrote:
>> Of course not. The cultural values of most Swedes, 
>> including this form of xenophobia, arose though 
>> evolution. Cultures that did not have such
>> values did not last very long. (Burden of proof: 
>> just where, historically, did one see a long
lasting 
>> culture or society not jealous of its own
>> identity?)

Anders Sandberg replied:
> The idea that a society should have its own identity

> is fairly historically recent. Nationalism as an 
> ideology was invented mid 1800's. Before that it was

> more a matter of who was the ruler or who had 
> inhereited the land, although there have been a few 
> exceptions like the romans, who had an originally 
> ethnicity-based citizenship concept. I  can't recall

> any suggestion that (say) Egyptians had a need to 
> assert their
> identity.

What about Mayan culture, or Japan in the various
empire periods? (Weren't they also using a figleaf of
empire in some of feudal periods as well?) Weren't
those 'nationalistic'? Or China's history of a single
style of bureaucracy thru multiple dynasties?

Anders continues:
> On a purely psychological levels people always tend 
> to assert the identity of their in-group, but for 
> much of history this was far smaller than iron
> age states. Village identity, guild identity, 
> religious identity, yes, but not so much a social 
> identity encompassing a particular nation. 

Couldn't those - especially a religious identity - be
a precursor of nationalism, especially as so many
nation-states across the history of the world were
formed explicitly or implicitly for the dissemmination
of a specific religion? 

Even a village (upscaled to city) identity IMO could
be pointed to as a foundation of a nation-state. Look
at the history of Greek civilization wherein
city-states struggled to impose their cultural mores
(and political rulers) on their neighbors militarily
and economically. 

-snip Bros Grim example-
Lee Corbin wrote:
>> There are two reasons why your ideas don't have
time 
>> enough. One, of course, is the singularity (even if

>> in its mildest and gentlest form).

Anders responded:
> Why wouldn't nation states survive the singularity? 

Excellent question. There is no reason that I know of
that nationality, religion, pseudoscience, liking for
football, or other 'waste of time' activity might not
survive the singularity. 

Anders:
> If we assume that people do socially cluster 
> according to some form of identity, even if this 
> identity is based on highly archaic and traditional 
> notions, then the postsingularity entities might 
> still have kept such mental properties and
> contine preferential clustering based on the same 
> notions. And if states actually make sense from a 
> practical point of view they will remain, while
> their merging may be limited by economies of scale
> or the emergence of useful sub-superstate clusters 
> (e.g. like in Nozick's utopia model). So barring 
> radical shifts in vulnerability to *all* threats, 
> extreme autonomy and the need to network
selectively, 
> state-like entities are not implausible post 
> singularity.

Additionally, if we assume that the singularity is not
all-encompassing in its scope - sweeping up every
sophont within a short period of time - there's a huge
divide waiting to be exploited - pre- and post-
singularity sophonces will most likely have radically
different goals, conceptualizations, and explanations
for themselves. Therefore, IMO, assuming SOME form of
social clustering continues to exist, there's a huge
rationale for developing pre- and post-singularity
social clusters.

Anders:
> Of course, if postsingularity Sweden is still 
> debating taxes I'm going to (postsingularity-) cry.

And if America still has its embedded political class,
so'll I. *wry grin*

-John B

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