[ExI] Planetary defense

[Keith Henson]

On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 3:58 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
> Keith Henson wrote:

snip

> No idea, but I think evo psych might not be *enough* as an explanation or as
> a tool for fixing the problem.

About the only use I have found for EP is that it ends you wondering
what is going on with irrational human behavior.  Turns out that
irrational is just a point of view and irrational behavior is entirely
rational from the viewpoint of genes.  (Sneaky little bastards.)

> I have no doubt it might help us understand
> the original underpinnings of human aggressive behavior, but there are
> plenty of other factors - human cultural patterns are good at hijacking or
> exapting evolved affordances (just consider ideological warfare),

I make the case that causation runs the other way with the
underpinnings that lead to human aggression hijacking the culture as
part of the memetic run up to war.

> the
> economics of warfare has changed several times (warfare for material
> resources has mutated into 'politics by other means' and security policy)
> and the technological changes make various factors very different (distance
> warfare, automated warfare, lethalty, deterrence game theory etc).

I am thinking of Rwanda when reading this.

If you start looking into the root causes for the people who start
wars, they are not different in kind from the causes that lie behind
hunter gatherer warfare.  Azar Gat is one of the most respected people
around in the study of war.  It's worth reading this publication of
his for background.

"The Human Motivational Complex: Evolutionary Theory And The Causes Of
Hunter-Gatherer Fighting."
[http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20100530133845/http://cniss.wustl.edu/workshoppapers/gatpres1.pdf]

> That you might be able to trace plenty of these factors causally back to
> some old fitness drivers doen't necessarily help understanding them
> practically. An evopsych analysis of the financial crisis is unlikely to
> give us a good recipe for avoiding the next one,

True.  Even with war.  If we understand that to stay out of war mode
we need to keep the population growth below the economic growth, how
does that possibly translate into anything we can do reduce the birth
rate in (say) Arab cultures?

> while an analysis on the
> principal-agent problem level might be much more helpful.

It might be.  For all the distance between a hunter gatherer culture
and automated trading on the stock exchanges, understanding evolved
human psychological mechanisms still might be useful.

> Some basics are however likely true. If the future looks bright, then you
> want to invest your resources rather than compete for scarce resources. So
> increasing growth potential is a good thing. Institutions allowing conflicts
> to bleed off in nonviolent ways (lawsuits, arbitration) or make the
> cost/benefit ratio of violence different (social trust, enforcement of laws,
> economic incentives for cooperation) also help.

I would argue that these are fluff on top of the far more dangerous
underlying psychological mechanisms.

How long would it take from transportation stopping to food riots?

That is a major reason I work on energy problems.

Keith

> --
> Anders Sandberg,
> Future of Humanity Institute
> Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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