Conversation

Replying to
The most dangerous judgmental types are the ones for whom “do nothing off script” happens to be an exceptionally sweet bet. Ie the system’s defaults fit you well enough that you develop the illusion that all active risk-taking/script-breaking is irresponsible societal vandalism.
2
38
This is a wider net than you might think, since it includes all scripts, including scripts nominally devoted to change and progress rather than preservation. They may even work. It’s just that they work so slowly, and are so stable across generations, there are scripts for them.
1
16
A social justice mission that might slowly make the world fairer over decades (socialism) or centuries (Christianity, Islam) will induce scripts you can follow blindly. Ditto economic development scripts that work for decades. “Silicon Valley” is 3 generations old already.
1
22
And scripts often position themselves as breaks from *other* scripts. But they’re scripts nevertheless. If it can be parodied, it’s a script. Even if it’s too young to have acquired multiple generations. And if it’s a script, it’s distorting your view of civilizational risks.
1
20
Being parodied and anomie are the 2 strong push-pull signals that can keep you ahead of maturing scripts. Though that’s no guarantee that your distortions will weaken. But being captured by scripts is a guarantee that your distortions *will* harden into judgmentalism.
1
11
It would be interesting to actually model the portfolio effect somehow. If you had 100 people with say n entrepreneurs, m social workers, p investigative journalists, q frontline first respondents, r soldiers, s homeless people etc, what does the net civ risk profile look like?
1
9
It’s hard to think of a societal role, however apparently lowly, that *doesn’t* contribute to the net risk reward function. There are no true NPCs.
1
12
Even people who seem obviously beyond the pale, like people building uninsurable homes in floodplains/hurricane zones/fire boundaries and expecting bailouts post-disaster, are helping learn the global risk function. Though it’s admittedly hard to be sympathetic.
2
9
Do you know in what ways *you* are building on a flood plain? Is for eg. all of academia a flood plain? Is making art and expecting Patreon/NFT income that different from building in a hurricane zone and expecting FEMA bailout? Super easy to rationalize your thing as prosocial.
3
19
Replying to and
hmm, not sure this socializing risk idea maps to patronage that easily. In both cases there’s at least a sense of getting value in return for your investment. Speculative relationships to that value are not intrinsic to the exchange
1
1
Replying to and
We also think we get return on our taxes I tend to the view that all loftier sentiments driving direct or indirect spending work on the same emotions. I don’t feel that differently about supporting an artist vs my tax dollars supporting a museum.
1
1
Show replies