No. I presume that: * innovators will innovate even without status boost, because (a) they're driven to it, (b) there are economic rewards, (c) a and b work together to get us "enough" innovators. * without status bump "we" get "too few" warriors.
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Replying to @MorlockP
The argument that we naturally have too few innovators seems to me much stronger than for too few warriors.
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Replying to @robinhanson
what matters when explaining why things are as they are is not what economists think, but what the logic of evolutionary selection thinks (and thinks RETROspectively, not prospectively) Did a tribe in 10,000 BC that rewarded innovators more have its genes or memes replicated?
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Replying to @MorlockP
A tribe in 10K BC internalized a far smaller % of gains from innovation than from war.
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Replying to @robinhanson
Right, exactly. So both culturally and genetically, we'd expect humans to optimize for investing in war (offensive or defensive). Given 10k years (100k years?) of this environment, we'd expect the human default to STILL do this. ...and it does.
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Replying to @MorlockP
It seems to me we agree. Our culture does in fact promote war more than innovation. This isn't because being a warrior is harder, but because ancestor societies gained so much from promoting war.
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Replying to @robinhanson
we're within 1% of agreeing, certainly ; maybe perfectly agreeing? we promote war more because the supply of warriors is elastic / responds to incentives, and in the evolutionary context we needed more than the default level
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Replying to @MorlockP
The supply of innovators is also elastic and responds to incentives. And we need innovators. But yes our culture learned long ago to promote war and it hasn't relearned about innovation so much,
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Replying to @robinhanson
until the genes are aligned with this goal, any cultural change will be pushing up hill. Imagine that the gov sets out to change the culture via cartoons for kids, etc. That program exists at the discretion of gov officials and voters...who have genes that glorify war! >
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Replying to @MorlockP @robinhanson
so one electoral hiccup, or even just a change in administrations, and the conscious push to change incentives falters and reverts to mean lasting change will only come with evolution or genetic editing ...and even then, might very well be subverted by defection by another group
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if country A both changes culture and changes genes to reward innovation, and innovation then compounds at 20% per generation not 10%, country B can take advantage of A's "under" funded military & lower warrior ethos to conquer & expropriate the gains of innovation
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