Conversation

Malthusianism is an early form of basilisk. its enduring popularity, despite batting .000, comes from its promise that *somebody* is going to have to choose what kind of people there needs to be fewer of — who of course is going to be someone wise enough to embrace Malthusianism
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this is both carrot and stick: become an early adopter, get to play God and settle scores; wait around or deny and you're basically volunteering to be culled. really very solid design if you're looking for a durable meme that will kill a lot of people
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This critique generalizes even more I think. It’s basically determinists who either willfully or obliviously ignore natural corrective/homeostatic mechanisms for nonlinear extrapolated instabilities. Ranging from market supply/demand to exit/voice to collapse.
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Which suggests that they fear indeterminate outcomes from relatively neutral mechanisms much more than any determinate dystopia. “Oh shit, the outcome could effectively be a coin toss”
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This is why I champion mediocrity. It is a way of solving for survivability in a world shaped by complex emergent homeostasis mechanisms whose outcomes are effectively random with respect to our predictive ability. Antifragility is a conservative subset of mediocrity strategies.
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In the EEA, actual catastrophes, especially predictable catastrophes, were essentially nonexistent. The genes see it all as political power games and reacts accordingly. In this case they're right, too.