Models

It's been a while since I wrote about how economist Julian Simon's theories don't work. I last wrote about him in Some thoughts and responses to Julian Simon about six months ago. I heard him mentioned in a video, which prompted me to share a thought I had on my list of blog post ideas. Consider homelessness, a perpetual problem, as far as I know, in every society. One of Simon's big ideas is Adding more people causes problems. But people are also the means to solve these problems. The main fuel to speed the world’s progress is our stock of knowledge; the brakes are our lack of imagination and unsound social regulations of these activities. The ultimate resource is people—especially skilled, spirited, and hopeful…

Most speculation I see about what might happen with artificial intelligence anticipates some stable situation where humans and AI reach an equilibrium. Do people not understand exponential growth? Do they not understand that AI drives the development of AI? Even if you don't know differential equations or calculus, which predicts exponential growth, you have to see that that situation means that the faster AI develops, the faster AI develops more AI. In other words, any equilibrium will last less time than the one before. By the time AI creates a robot with human intelligence and physical ability, ten minutes later it will be able to create one with double each. If not exactly ten minutes later, well short of any time for us to adjust.…

What does it mean to own something physical, like a book or a plot of land? I grew up knowing people owned things. I owned my shoes. My parents owned their houses. Nobody owned the sky. I had a vague sense that Native Americans found colonists weird for claiming to own land. Other cultures didn't share the sense of ownership my culture did. People seemed to think their system was probably better, but too naive since it lost out. I heard that communists said "private property is theft," which sounded interesting but it didn't suggest what to do about it. What about my shoes? Did owning them imply they were stolen? After I wore them enough, who else would want them? What owning something doesn't…

When we say someone has a right to something like life, liberty, property, free speech, the pursuit of happiness, and so on, what does "having a right" mean? I grew up thinking the phrase implied something about the person or reality. On the contrary, as best I can tell, it says something about government. I can talk without the "right" to speak. Having the right means that if someone tries to stop me, agents from the government will prevent them from stopping me. Well, it depends where you are and how the place defines free speech. I guess in the US having the right means that agents of the government will not prevent you, and if they do try to prevent you, other agents from…

There's a pattern in systems called an arms race, where two or more parties get stuck, each compelled to advance its military. When one does, all the others have to follow or risk being attacked or taken over. The pattern happens in other areas, but arms and the military is the prototypical example. We're all familiar with how this systemic pattern played out in the cold war, for example contributing to enough nuclear weapons to destroy all human life many times over, in the process diverting great amounts of wealth from helping people. One can argue if that wealth hadn't been diverted and war began because one nation knew it could defeat the one arming itself less, but that argument doesn't change that humans chose…

Would you expect a plantation owner to have any idea how to abolish slavery? They would be the last people to ask to make a strategy for ending the practice providing their livelihoods and wealth. To ask a plantation owner to end slavery is to ask them how to give up everything they feel they own. They'd risk vengeance from the people they freed. They'd have to acknowledge their actions that hurt others and violated their own values, then lied to themselves and others about it. I'll copy the above two paragraphs, changing the domain from slavery to polluting and depleting. See if the perspective illuminates not to listen to polluters about how to stop polluting. It may be tempting to avoid comparing something to…

People sometimes ask me my definition of sustainability. Usually I say something about maintaining earth's ability to sustain life. Because we humans depend on other life, maintaining earth's ability to sustain life means its ability to sustain human life too. I like lots of life, but I like human life especially. I'm testing a new definition of sustainability: To be able to live without taking or harming others' life, liberty, or property and when taking something from nature, you leave at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others. You can probably tell I'm drawing on established enlightendigenous values. The first part comes from the US Constitution, the second from John Locke's Second Treatise on Government. It seems like this…

I was listening to a podcast ostensibly about sustainability and nature. The particular podcast isn't important because this pattern happens in many places. One of the guests was talking about tourism that seemed no different from any other tourism, but she called it eco-tourism. The only difference I could tell from any other tourism was the name. People were destroying cultures and ecosystems as much as any other tourism. The people she described seemed to think of themselves as good guys, but as far as I could tell, based not on their behavior or impact on others, but only on how they thought of themselves. Putting the prefix eco- before tourism seemed to justify their categorization in their own minds, as far as I could…