Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Friday, January 11, 2008

Still More "Compass"

Upgraded and adapted from Comments.
A Comment from the Moot: But how do you propose to deal with all these "left" monolithic nannystate bureaucracies that we have these days, overstaffed by overpaid idiots who always know better what you should eat, what you should read or think, whom you should sleep with, what products you are allowed to consume...

[The] flaw of "The Left": a certain tendency to favor a Big Brother nannystate that, of course with our best interest in mind, watches over and judges each and every single detail of our lives, even those with no impact on anyone else. I am all for a strong government able to manage real conflicts between concrete parts, but I can do without being told what to think or do on a 24/7 basis.

Surely you are referring to corporations rather than states when you bemoan oppressive dictatorial bureaucratized organizations here?

No?

How interesting.

Again, the Cold War is over, people. Let's put its rhetoric to bed, too, shall we?

I have to wonder, though, before I direct myself to answering the question at hand, just why is it that it is the self-proclaimed "futurists" -- of all the people I interact on a regular basis, very much including "futurists" who will insist on their lefty credentials (otherwise I would probably not be devoting any time to them at all, beyond what is necessary to make fun of them in public places) -- why are these people the ones in my acquaintance who inevitably sound politically the most like hawks from the Cold War era, robber barons from the McKinley era, or salon philosophers of the 18th century?

Retro-futurism rears its ugly head so incessantly among the futurologically inclined, so-called. Why is that?

Now, to be very clear: "Nanny-state" is a right-wing frame. You are participating in an anti-democratizing discourse when you deploy it, a discourse with an easily trackable actually-existing history of anti-democratic advocates and effects. Since I doubt of course that you would intend such effects yourself, I thought I would do you the public service of reminding you of the context for your text so you would be more careful in deploying a tool you may imperfectly understand.

To say that "nanny-state" is a right-wing frame is not to deny the truthy kernel of the actual problem it calls our attention to. The kernel of truth is the engine that lends the anti-democratizing aspiration of the right-wing frame its actually mobilizing power. This is generally true of effective anti-democratizing rhetorics, especially the ones that must disseminate in notionally representative (what Foucault would call disciplinary/biopolitical) orders. One must be always be on the alert for this mechanism when one is engaging with anti-democratizing rhetoric.

Of course, the Compass dulls our capacity to do this very thing, by muddying our sense of the relevant players, the sides they're on (indeed we lose track of the sides altogether and find ourselves stumbling around in "quadrants" drifting inward and outward from a "core" of altogether questionable import), the outcomes they are actually fighting for, and so on.

Anyway, the kernel of truth in the "nanny state" worry, is the problem of bureaucracy and corruption that inheres in social organization as such. (This is a worry that rarely seems to extend in those who mouth it to the even more bloated corrupt corporations they tend to prefer to the governments they would dismantle for it, but that of course is neither here nor there, eh?)

And, let us be honest here: To the extent that one seeks to implement the democratic values of equity and diversity through organizational efforts (legal and electoral apparatuses, health, education, and welfare administration, for example) these projects will indeed be vulnerable to bureaucratic inefficiencies, to corruption, and so on.

The point is that the problem of this vulnerability (to inefficiency, corruption, rationalized exploitation, and violence) is indifferent at this level of generality to questions of left versus right, but inheres in organization as such, whether made recourse to in the service of the projects of the left or of the right. This vulnerability is the farthest imaginable thing from "the flaw of the left" as you put it. However, it is interesting to note that it is far more likely to be the democratic sentiments of the Left that will be outraged by such effects before the anti-democratic sentiments of the Right (which will often actively demand more than decry such effects) will be. (Where someone/something traditionally or notionally "left" seems indifferent to such effects you have stumbled onto a fair indicator that an individual or organization originating in the democratic-left has drifted into, compromised too much with, or been otherwise appropriated by the right-incumbency.)

It offers no insight to help us understand the strengths of democracy as apposed to anti-democracy as such to pin this vulnerability on the left in particular, nor does it offer us the guidance we want to think how the solutions we will propose to deal with this general organizational vulnerability will reflect our democratizing or anti-democratizing politics.

For three decades neolib/neocon incumbent interests have flogged the frame that government is inherently bloated and corrupt as a way of justifying their looting of its accomplishments and their shifting of postwar authority back into ever fewer, ever more secretive, ever less accountable hands.

Tools like the Compass facilitate such operations by confusing people as to whose side these critics are on.

It is very different to fight corruption to ensure that institutions are accountable to the people, to empower the people (as democrats do), as opposed to fighting government of the people, by the people and for the people in favor of privatization schemes that empower incumbents helming sluggish, secretive, inefficient, feudal corporate organizations (as anti-democrats do in the name of the incumbent interests with which they identify, financial or social or cultural).

These differences that make a difference are clear when one remembers the key distinction is democracy versus anti-democracy, but less clear if one is skipping down this and that axis of the Compass, imagining one's neoliberal free market reforms give one the "lefty" cred of opening up "spontaneous orders" in the name of civil liberties (they don't: they make one a dupe of the right).

There is, of course, by the way, a special vulnerability to corruption and violence in governmental organization, inasmuch as government must be empowered with a legal monopoly on the use of violence to acquire the legitimacy through which it provides a nonviolent alternative recourse for the solution of disputes in a finite world of peers with diverse interests and aspirations. The democratic-left (which seems to me historically far more interested in solutions to these difficulties than the incumbent-right which opportunistically deploys them to its ends) tends to seek to overcome this vulnerability through the separation of powers (including a secure and educated citizenry and an independent press), through the universalization of the franchise, facilitated in part through the yoking of taxation to representation, through a rights discourse less susceptible to democratic contestation than other aspects of governance. And now, of course, in the emerging technoprogressive mainstream we have the unprecedented proliferation of p2p formations to facilitate the dem-left project as well (surveillance, wealth concentration via automation, robot weapons are the incumbent-right face of these developments).

The Left opts for these sorts of solutions because they facilitate the larger project of the left to provide ever more people ever more of a say in the public decisions that affect them, the desire that animates the left and inspires the democratic values of equity and diversity the fraught ongoing collective implementation of which drives and constitutes the long history and conversation of the left in the world.

The Right, on the other hand, tends to overcome this vulnerability to governmental corruption and violence through the retroactive rationalization of its violences as serving a natural order of which they are its natural representatives and beneficiaries.

These things become very clear very clearly when one looks at them this way (other things, like figuring out how to do justice to the actually diverse interests and aspirations of our peers, I fear, become much harder, but that is life). The Compass makes these simple truths of Left versus Right, of democrats versus anti-democrats, of people powered politics versus incumbent interests much harder for us to see.

That is its purpose.

11 comments:

jimf said...

Dale wrote:

> [W]hy is it that it is the self-proclaimed "futurists" -- . . .very much
> including "futurists" who will insist on their lefty credentials. . . --
> . . .who inevitably sound politically the most like hawks from the
> Cold War era, robber barons from the McKinley era, or
> salon philosophers of the 18th century?
>
> Retro-futurism rears its ugly head so incessantly among the
> futurologically inclined, so-called. Why is that?

Well, my guess is that the "futurologically inclined", at this point
in history, are most often both male and sci-fi-geeky, with the
concomitant lack of social awareness and deficits in empathy entailed
both by (heterosexual) maleness itself and being on the Autistic Spectrum.

Other folks see the Future (the time of Superlative tech) as
a source of power, wealth and status. Those people --
the self-help devotes, the "entrepreneurs", the con artists (some
of them) have a high proportion of personalities tending
toward or outright exhibiting clinical Narcissistic Personality
Disorder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
Again, not exactly a wellspring of empathy.

I suspect that this boundary between "futurists" and normal
folks has rather hardened since the advent of the Web. It is,
for example, almost impossible to participate in the usual
forums frequented by self-proclaimed futurists if you don't like Ayn Rand
(and don't mind saying so).

Does being "futurologically inclined" **necessarily** entail all
this? I don't think so -- I think, for example, of British
SF author Olaf Stapledon, who was admired by Bertrand Russell
and who would not, I expect, have liked (or been liked by)
Ayn Rand. Or again, an author such as William
Gibson. Neither of these writers is much discussed or admired
among the on-line self-proclaimed futurists, as far as I have
been able to tell.

Of course, the latest gambit among some of the hard-core futurists
is to pooh-pooh all science fiction (all fiction, presumably)
as being an "irrational" way to "reason about" the future. This
is exactly the reverse of the party line among some of those
same folks 10 years ago. I suspect there might be a bit of sour
grapes in this tack -- the pre-eminent SF authors today have
tended **not** to take the ("serious") futurists as seriously
as they no doubt expected to be taken.

Dale Carrico said...

[T]he latest gambit among some of the hard-core futurists
is to pooh-pooh all science fiction (all fiction, presumably)
as being an "irrational" way to "reason about" the future. This
is exactly the reverse of the party line among some of those
same folks 10 years ago. I suspect there might be a bit of sour
grapes in this tack -- the pre-eminent SF authors today have
tended **not** to take the ("serious") futurists as seriously
as they no doubt expected to be taken.


Interesting! Do you have any especially good citations for this on hand? It's not at all that I doubt you, but that I'd like to write about this and I trust your judgment in unearthing the juicy bits. I'd hazard the guess that two things afoot here are

one: the inevitable transition from future-shock to future-fatigue as the hype inevitably fails to materialize (the impact of future-fatigue is normally muted by the fact that bourgeois society keeps churning up new generations of naive consumerist techno-enthusiasts whose noise makers drown out the fatigued voices of hard-won experience as they emerge -- this muting is less likely to happen though in eras when many educated people are economically insecure, when mass-mediation is displaced by p2p, when widespread worries about energy and resource descent give the lie to hype, etc.)

two: futurists are competing with sf authors for readers at this point (the hostility arises from the fact that the futurists are almost always worse writers than the sf fiction-writers, and they feel the need to deny they are writing fiction at all and try to pretend to be social scientists of some kind which is a drag and makes them resentful).

jimf said...

Dale wrote:

> Do you have any especially good citations for this on hand?
> It's not at all that I doubt you, but that I'd like to write about
> this and I trust your judgment in unearthing the juicy bits.

"Avoid making generalizations from fiction or science fiction at all costs."

-- Eliezer Yudkowsky. "Predicting the Future".
Talk given at the World Futures Symposium 2003, sponsored by the
New York Transhumanist Association

(quoted in Michael Anissimov's "Future Shock Level Analysis"
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/works/shocklevelanalysis.htm )

A more recent article by Yudkowsky is
"The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence"
October 15, 2007
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/10/fictional-evide.html#more

Michael Anissimov has echoed this sentiment here and there.
In fact, he wrote to you (on his blog, Monday, Oct 29 2007):

"Dale,

. . .

I’m barely even into SF. I don’t watch any television or many movies.
I watch anime that is mostly fantasy, not sci-fi. I got into transhumanism
by reading non-fiction books. Most fiction deals with AI in a really
anthropomorphic way, so it doesn’t factor into my thinking about the
future of AI in the real world. I dislike much sci-fi and often give
it negative reviews, like the negative review of Accelerando I wrote
about a year ago."
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/?p=603

Back in the 90's Eliezer was recommending two things -- reading SF
and programming computers -- as mental exercises conducive to getting
in tune with the big S. (Unfortunately, the Extropians' list archives
from that era are long gone.)

Anonymous said...

Corporations are the most top-down, centralized, authoritarian structures I have ever had the mis-pleasure to be trapped in.

Why some people think a world ruled by these entities would be anything but a nightmare, I don't know.

I work for a giant trans-national corporation and with the state (California) government and I can safely state that in no way is the corporation more efficient than the government entity I deal with. They both are slow to change, bad communicators and bloated with pointless 'managers'.

And my particular corporate overlord is a very successful one, in the way they measure things (profits, stock price, etc.).

Dale Carrico said...

Oh, I was thinking you might have some more mainstream figures in mind.

Dale Carrico said...

Corporations are the most top-down, centralized, authoritarian structures I have ever had the mis-pleasure to be trapped in.

Ain't that the truth.

Anonymous said...

That is its purpose.

Why would the creators of the compass have bad intentions? You also think the executives of large corporations have large

Of course, the latest gambit among some of the hard-core futurists
is to pooh-pooh all science fiction (all fiction, presumably)
as being an "irrational" way to "reason about" the future. This
is exactly the reverse of the party line among some of those
same folks 10 years ago. I suspect there might be a bit of sour
grapes in this tack -- the pre-eminent SF authors today have
tended **not** to take the ("serious") futurists as seriously
as they no doubt expected to be taken.


If they are right about that, why criticize them (about that)? I don't see why fictional facts (not hypothetical situations) would be a good way to reason about anything.

Other folks see the Future (the time of Superlative tech) as
a source of power, wealth and status. Those people --
the self-help devotes, the "entrepreneurs", the con artists (some
of them) have a high proportion of personalities tending
toward or outright exhibiting clinical Narcissistic Personality
Disorder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
Again, not exactly a wellspring of empathy.


What's bad about gaining power, wealth and status? Competition for those things tends to make everyone better off. Yes, narcissistic personality disorder is bad, but maybe narcissists indirectly help the public (technology, etc.).

Con artistry obviously doesn't, but I don't think most Singulatarians are associated with obvious con artists. If many Singulatarians are non-obvious con artists, then you have to explain.

Even if Singulatarianism attracts a large amount of con artists, that doesn't make it bad (in any way). The government attracts many corrupt people, but that doesn't mean the government is bad (compared to absolutely no government).

One other thing (for Dale): I am a utilitarian, and I think the purpose of government is to maximize global utility (happiness). That's why I don't see "legitimacy" as necessary if most people are indifferent about their government.

Anonymous said...

J: Eliezer's "The Meaning of Life" FAQ still contains a recommendation to read SF:

---
3.7.3: What if I want to actually steer the future?

All of the above is just for helping with other people's Singularity projects. If you want to start your own projects or make policy decisions, you will need a high future-shock level. You can't afford to be so stunned by the technologies that you can't think clearly. In practical terms, this means only one thing: Read science fiction.

Reading science fiction is one of only three "software" methods I know of for increasing intelligence. (The others being (A) learning to program a computer; and (B) studying high-level cognitive science such as AI and evolutionary psychology). Like all methods of intelligence enhancement, this is more effective in childhood, so introduce your kids, too. You should start by reading early Niven and Pournelle, or David Brin (their recent stuff isn't as good); work your way up to Ed Regis and David Zindell; finally, read Vernor Vinge and Greg Egan. (Feel free to take these books out of the library; you're under no obligation to buy them.) If you're already a science-fiction fan, you can ignore these instructions; but if not, you will need to be a science-fiction fan.

If you'll need to think about the Singularity, and especially if you'll need to make decisions, reading science fiction is the only thing that can prepare you. A steady diet of science fiction is your passport to the future; it allows your mind to keep its bearings when the rules start changing, or when you need to think about a world substantially different from twentieth-century America (or wherever you come from). You can no more survive and act in a future environment without science fiction than you could keep your bearings in 13th-century Europe without studying history.

---

Source

The most vociferous libertarian among the transhumanist blogs that I am reading is Reason from fightaging.org. Its reporting on medical topics is very interesting, but Reason often manages to put in some dire warnings against his nemesis, "socialized medicine".

FrF

Dale Carrico said...

Why would the creators of the compass have bad intentions?

Why would anybody? And, anyway, the road to hell is paved with "good" intentions. And, anyway, structural overdetermination by the profit-motive in orders defined by incumbency can produce predictably malign effects even if none of the relevant actors has malign intentions.

I suspect there might be a bit of sour grapes in this tack -- the pre-eminent SF authors today have
tended **not** to take the ("serious") futurists as seriously
as they no doubt expected to be taken.

If they are right about that, why criticize them (about that)?


Why not?

What's bad about gaining power, wealth and status? Competition for those things tends to make everyone better off.

Typical bullshit. If an asshole gets power by screwing everybody over you can expect him to spout precisly that self-serving crap to justify himself. Libertopians can all go fuck themselves.

Con artistry obviously doesn't, but I don't think most Singulatarians are associated with obvious con artists.

Whatever. There are only a few hundred Singularitarians anyway. The number of cultists and con artists among them is so high that one has to seriously suspect the critical capacities and good intentions of even those more "reasonable" Singularitarians willing to tolerate them.

Even if Singulatarianism attracts a large amount of con artists, that doesn't make it bad (in any way).

wtf?

The government attracts many corrupt people, but that doesn't mean the government is bad (compared to absolutely no government).

Oh, for heaven's sake. When the Singularitarian cult manages to exist as long as democratic governnance, manages to involve as many people as democratic governance, and does as much demonstrable good as democratic governance has, whatever its flaws, then this comparison won't be the laughably stupid false analogy it presently is.

I am a utilitarian,

I'm not surprised.

and I think the purpose of government is to maximize global utility (happiness).

As determined by whom?

That's why I don't see "legitimacy" as necessary

Get back to me if you ever find yourself in a dictatorship. Oh, wait, you won't be able to.

You need to think more deeply before you take your act on the road, Peco.

Dale Carrico said...

["]Reason["] often manages to put in some dire warnings against his nemesis, "socialized medicine".

Talk about speculative fiction! PuhDUMpum.

Anonymous said...

Typical bullshit. If an asshole gets power by screwing everybody over you can expect him to spout precisly that self-serving crap to justify himself. Libertopians can all go fuck themselves.

Of course competition for those things also causes bad things to happen, but overall, I don't know if it is good or bad.

I am not a libertarian.

Get back to me if you ever find yourself in a dictatorship. Oh, wait, you won't be able to.

A dictatorship has many problems other than lack of legitimacy.

Oh, for heaven's sake. When the Singularitarian cult manages to exist as long as democratic governnance, manages to involve as many people as democratic governance, and does as much demonstrable good as democratic governance has, whatever its flaws, then this comparison won't be the laughably stupid false analogy it presently is.


I'm saying that "it attracts stupid people" doesn't mean "it is bad." "It does stupid things" does mean "it is bad."

As determined by whom?

There are some things which obviously don't maximize it, and those things are bad. People are quite good at figuring out how happy they are. I don't think happiness can be be added, but some amounts of happiness are definitely more than others (reducing one person's happiness without affecting anyone else).

You need to think more deeply before you take your act on the road, Peco.

I have no act.

Whatever. There are only a few hundred Singularitarians anyway. The number of cultists and con artists among them is so high that one has to seriously suspect the critical capacities and good intentions of even those more "reasonable" Singularitarians willing to tolerate them.

Cultists don't count as narcissistic people (I'm saying that the number of narcissistic people is very low). How many of them are *obvious* con artists? I read quite a few of their blogs, and they don't sound like obvious con artists.