[ExI] communism/authoritarianism

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Sat, Sep 19, 2020 at 5:44 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> How can anyone want a hereditary monarchy, if they are at all acquainted
> with world history? Lol Over the long-term, it is the road to civil war, horrible
> rulers and chaos... Michael Anissimov hurt his reputation with such ideas.

Through a highly selective reading of history (though not necessarily
intentionally so) that focuses on the best cases and ignore even the
bad aspects of those?

> I would like to give AGI a shot at ruling society, or at least co-ruling. But then
> they may get ideas about crime & punishment, and how to curb over-population,
> that chill our blood.

I've often heard the scenario put forth to Biblical literalists of a
robot programmed to enforce biblical rules. Would they care to live
under that robot's rule?

> I worry about how the rioting has not gone away, but may instead be a permanent
> part of the new normal. We have seen millions of dollars damage done from
> vandalism & looting, and many people hurt.

I wonder if that's not being overstated or if it's ignoring the past.
>From my reading of history, the riots of the 1960s and 1970s seem far
worse. For instance, I live in Seattle (and not in Oz as someone here
thought) and I don't see a city wrecked because of the protests. In
fact, if you're not near the major protest areas and were otherwise
ignorant about them you might wonder what's all the fuss. A few square
blocks on Capitol Hill, for example, amount to something less than 1%
of the city. Yet if you only know this from news footage you might
presume people in Seattle are under siege by protesters and the whole
city is burning down.

> But at the same time, l am skeptical about cities truly reforming their police forces, once the pressure to do so goes away.

There are a few cities that have 'defunded' their police. Camden, NJ
did, though that was years ago. But there's been a lot of effective
pushback by police unions and lobbyists that pretty much stopped in
getting rid of qualified immunity in places like Virginia. See:

https://reason.com/2020/09/16/virginia-democrats-declined-to-end-qualified-immunity-police-unions-are-alive-and-well/

> People/groups seem to demonize each other, rather than being able to
> communicate with those of differing views. This is not a good thing. A
> classic belief is that when this happens, those at the very top are pleased,
> because their game is divide and conquer.

That might be, but the police seem to deserve some demonization here,
especially after decades or more of being treated as only having a
'few bad apples' -- bad apples that almost always are protected and
promoted. And there's a lot of police misconduct aside from killing
people. Things like this:

https://reason.com/2019/02/09/the-chemists-and-the-cover-up/

A great book on some of this is _Failed Evidence: Why Law Enforcement
Resists Science_ by David Harris. It's a few years old now, but it
shows how police and prosecutors rarely QA their work leading to lives
being ruined. Is there any other legal profession anyone interacts
with where you might end up in prison, losing everything, wrongly on
an offenders list, seriously injured, your dog shot, or even dead
almost as a matter of routine?

Regards,

Dan