[ExI] Evolving conservatism

[Anders Sandberg]

I am not sure rephrasing everything to some evopsych just-so explanation 
actually helps: it is better to look at what the evidence actually is 
and what it shows works, unless one is *really* confident that the 
evopsych theory provides a very actionable framework. Philip Tetlocks 
"foxes vs. hedgehog" results ("Expert Political Judgment:
How Good Is It? How Can We Know?") actually seems to warn us against 
linking up too much to single theories in messy domains.

On 10/01/2014 22:13, Eric Messick wrote:
> I think this is a fundamental question that needs to be addressed in
> order for us to be able to get traction in a variety of areas.  Keith
> mentions the critical area of expanding our energy options.  I see
> similar stumbling blocks thrown in front of advocates of computer
> security advances.  Medical research into extending lifespan seems to
> receive insanely small funding for something with a promise of a huge
> payoff.  Hostility to cryonics likely falls into this category as
> well.
>
> It's hard to know for sure what goes on in the heads of people who are
> resistant to new ideas.

No, it is totally everyday things! Stuff we experience ourselves all the 
time!

Status quo bias is pervasive. See some of the evidence and effects at
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rzeckhau/SQBDM.pdf
http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/statusquo.pdf
Note that a minor bias may become a major effect if it is pervasive: 
each interaction will weakly bias you in a certain direction.

BillK mentioned "People don't much like being told their life's efforts 
have been cheapened." - this is another factor. Anything that threatens 
the structures we have emotional investment in, such as our concept of 
self, life structure or community, is resisted. This is why I think life 
extension is underfunded (besides the impression, due to past failure, 
that it is unlikely to work).

I argued against his view that the rich and powerful have an incentive 
to prevent radical new technologies, but I do not deny that plenty of 
particular people and institutions are rationally wedded to particular 
approaches or infrastructures - just look at the music industry's 20 
year struggle to protect a failing business model, no matter what the 
collateral damage is.

Conservatism in the neophobic sense also seem linked to general 
psychological outlook (some of which is due to upbringing), but there 
are moods too - fear makes you more conservative, and there are fine 
examples of reminders of mortality make people conservative. This is 
IMHO why the US went conservative (yes, the liberals too) after 911: it 
got more scared. Incidentally, Keith's strategy of bringing up our 
desperate energy plight might be directly triggering a conservative 
reaction by suggesting a dark future.

Finally, people do not wish to consider ideas that come from low-status 
people, people expressing views along some dimension they are strongly 
against (would *you* listen to health advice from a neo-nazi doctor?), 
or appear low probability given their current base of information. Nor 
do they want to risk their own reputations as high status, nice rational 
people by being seen considering them. (Even though most of the time we 
do not care much where people learn things: this is more of a "but what 
would people say?" self image thing than actual status-gaming, IMHO)


Keith has problem selling his space energy idea because the proposal 
more or less starts with "first launch a gigantic space laser at 
enormous cost..." That will turn off the ears of 99% of people: the rest 
of the spiel is listened to as entertainment, not a business proposal. 
Even if one thinks the business case does works out (and there are 
concerns there - Musk pointed out the power conversion losses, and there 
are plenty of risks - engineering, political, capital etc.) the upfront 
cost is big. Yes, smaller than some other costs, but still a significant 
investment for most actors. That means the pool of potential investors 
is small, most people who aren't zillionaires have no chance to 
contribute, and people's scepticism go way up - we tend to be more 
sceptical about unusual proposals with big potential costs than regular 
proposals with normal losses/profits. These factors act *on top* of the 
bigger problem of excessive conservatism.

I am pretty optimistic about changing things, but that is because 
constructivist solutions (build alternative structures of decisionmaking 
and business) - they work well for small things and maybe for making 
global systems smarter, but they do not yet work for titanic chunks of 
engineering. Small is beautiful. And, if self-replicating, powerful...


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