20 KiB
[Q][D] Does a post-scarcity society need democracy?
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Author: u/AmeteurOpinions Finally, everyone was working together.*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2g3ksh/qd_does_a_postscarcity_society_need_democracy/
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Score: 8
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Created: 2014-09-11T12:50:27
Post:
I've been working on the rough-draft of that rational mecha story and it occurred to me that, in a world where AI's manage almost everything for humanity, there's not a lot of need for political involvement. Regional conflicts decline in number and severity, which removes the pressure on the citizen's to keep their administration accountable.
I keep ending up with a scenario where the vast majority of civilization doesn't care about political activity. Economic AI's artificially enforce a credit-based economy so people don't spend too much time in the holodeck, but I don't know how if it's even necessary to have a robust political body.
Comments:
u/aldonius [+9] (2 hours later)
Have you read Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom?
Post-scarcity, but not AI. The term used is 'ad-hocracy' - people running whatever interests them to run. Currency is explicitly 'social currency' - karma, in other words, though with public tracking of who-endorses-who.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+8] Finally, everyone was working together. (2 hours later)
My backlog lengthens yet again...
This sub. This friggin' sub.
u/alexanderwales [+6] Time flies like an arrow (2 hours later)
Yup, this is not only a good example of a post-scarcity society, but a good book as well.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+1] Finally, everyone was working together. (3 hours later)
Could you maybe summarize the relevant system so I don't have to read it before writing my own story?
u/alexanderwales [+7] Time flies like an arrow (3 hours later)
Sure. In Down and Out, pretty much all of the necessities of life (and most of the luxuries) are provided to you for free thanks to miraculous technological advancements. Instead, there's a reputation system called "Whuffie" which helps to regulate all of those things that can't be free for everyone, like who gets invited to a party, or who gets to use some bit of land somewhere. Think of it like reddit's karma system, but used through augmented reality and for nearly everything. If I hold the door open for you, you give me Whuffie, so (in theory) people who are good, nice, intelligent, etc. will have high Whuffie scores. Much of this system is subconscious, because everyone has brain implants.
The government just basically doesn't exist. Everything is done through decentralized networks, which includes Whuffie, so it's not like someone can apply power to the system. It's all ad-hoc and done on the fly, because they have the computing power to do it that way. Everything is done by mutual agreement, and usually on a small scale.
If anyone else is interested, you can get it for free (sans DRM) here. You can also read the short story Truncat here, which takes place in the same universe.
Edit: I should note that on Reddit, karma is primarily used for visibility - there are relatively few permissions that you gain as your karma goes up, and since the karma totals for the users aren't displayed in the comments (or by the link submissions), most people won't know whether the person they're talking to has 3K karma or 150K karma. A better reputation system comparison would probably be StackExchange or Slashdot, which have more involved karma systems, more prominently displayed user karma, and greater permissions as you move up the ladder (though in those systems the ladder is set by the admins rather than flowing naturally from the other users, which is what Whuffie purports to do).
u/None [+3] (7 hours later)
(in theory) people who are good, nice, intelligent, etc. will have high Whuffie scores.
The book makes a lot of showing that in actuality, people who are bland, pandering yes-men have high Whuffie scores, and many people (including, AFAICT, the POV character) are complete jerk-asses as ever.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (7 hours later)
Yup. And even then, I think that the book was a little bit on the optimistic side of things. You look at a place like Reddit where the "downvote does not mean disagree" rule is basically ignored, and you can pretty clearly see how a reputation based system like that would have some serious and immediate problems, and act to squelch certain opinions. Or just look at the witch-hunts that happen almost daily all over the internet (and of course, before the internet as well).
u/None [+1] (5 days later)
8/10, love this book
u/PeridexisErrant [+7] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (an hour later)
First, we should note that post scarcity society is a merely economic state, but I'll consider a utopian example in the spirit of the post. Imagine an ideal government, constructed and maintained with superhuman care, dedicated to enabling or promoting (depending on philosophy) human flourishing. Clearly it must not require the input of anyone disinterested - but equally for those who do care, there must be meaningful involvement. There are many forms that could take, from general debate and universal consensus, to a system like the parliamentary democracy I'm familiar with - with impartial advice and a flawless anticorruption watchdog. Or maybe a system like the benevolent quasi-dictatorship of To The Stars, where AIs and gestalt-consciousness committees call the shots.
Need democracy? Of course not, post scarcity societies can work around that kind of thing. Should have democracy? An entirely different question. Is the question the same as "does democracy lead to more human flourishing?" Either way, why?
Part of the fun is to examine what democracy is, in a way that lets us work out what defines it and about it we find valuable - and whether, in some circumstances, we might want to replace it with something else. I know that and why I would want a democracy in such a future - do you?
And by the same token - what level and kind of cognitive enhancement sets someone apart from humanity? What does it mean to be mortal if you have backups? So many interesting questions, and answers waiting to be found!
u/AmeteurOpinions [+3] Finally, everyone was working together. (3 hours later)
I used the term 'post-scarcity' because the setting isn't actually a utopia. Utopia's don't lead to much warfare.
I guess I'll go all-in with pseudo-democracy for the state of things.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+2] Utopian Smut Peddler (16 hours later)
Utopia's don't lead to much warfare.
Need some logical backing for that assumption. Lots of people seem to like warfare, or at least organized conflict, and would be interested in it even as simply consensual sport. Utopia doesn't mean people are perfect, after all.
Why global or intergalactic utopia? That seems to be defining yourself out of interesting story elements. Even then, there could still be outsiders who need to be fought to defend this specific perfect society, or people defined out of it for whatever reason.
I'm a little tired of this idea that you can't have interesting conflict in a story with a "true" utopia -- that all conflict has to come from internal political and social friction for any "big" story. I'd love to see more attempts to have functional and "nice" societies in speculative and especially rational fiction.
Writers need to stop making society itself hold the idiot ball.
u/None [+1] (5 days later)
It's not a real utopia if you don't actually want to live in it
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (6 days later)
It's not a real utopia if you don't actually want to live in it
No, that is not a useful definition of a utopia at all.
Do you actually think everyone on the planet has to want to live in a society for it to be called a utopia? Do you think you and radical religious nuts would want the same "perfect" society? There are obviously flavors to the idea of a perfect or near-perfect society, which is part of what makes the subject deeply interesting.
I was talking here specifically about a high level of competency of a social order, and how that seems to be lacking from a lot of sci-fi and speculative fiction. That does not preclude war, but it does mean the war has to be proven necessary and part of the optimal social order.
u/None [+1] (6 days later)
Yeah, my bad, I was on my phone and couldn't go in depth. Still, "not a useful definition at all" is harsh, it's at least a guideline.
The point I wanted to make (or steal, actually) was, a lot of "utopia" seem good when you first learn about them, but when you think about actually living in them, it's boring... and not utopist. "No more work, everything at your hand, we'll sing psalms to the Lord all day" seems fine and one can't object against it, because these are things you would like or should like, but in reality you wouldn't want to live there after a while.
I don't want to live in a world where there are no stories left to tell or live, so any imaginary setting where you can't have stories is not a real utopia.
Anyway, it's late in here and I may not be expressing myself clearly in English, but if you're interested in the subject, you should find this post on lesswrong interesting :
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+2] Utopian Smut Peddler (6 days later)
No, I think your English is fine. And I am harsh. That was a correct label for my response, I think.
It is your logical leaps between your preferences and what could or could not be called a utopia that bothers me. It was on the edge of a very odd "no true Scotsman" combined with a reversed Groucho Marx joke. Your extended response here is very interesting, however.
Do you see how your dissatisfaction, in itself, is the seed of interesting stories to be told about utopias? Utopias are not usefully defined by making all of their possible members completely happy. That is provably not possible without altering many, many people's ideals and goals. A much more useful definition is a society that is as perfect as possible and doesn't do blatantly less than the best good it is capable of.
I disagreed about war not being a feature of a utopian society because there would be people like you, but perhaps less balanced, who would find something to contest, some other society to poke with a stick, some aliens to shoot at, some internal status to be gained in a side-band social order bar fight.
It is your very disquiet with the idea of many peaceful utopian orders that proves utopias are a great place to set stories. A society can do nothing wrong, oppress none of their members, and still fail some people -- especially if it is a very "nice" utopia which refuses to alter people against their will using direct physical methods.
u/None [+1] (6 days later)
Thanks.
I think we have a different definition for utopia, I think I'm more absolutist/litteral/idealist on the use of the word, but to clarify exactly would need to go further than I have the motivation to.
That is provably not possible without altering many, many people's ideals and goals
So you could also say "utopia cannot be reached while we still cling to these old ideals and goals".
While we may reject such an future (because it would be opposed to our current morals), well... we may be wrong. Future will be weird anyway. I mean, we have gay marriage... we have interracial marriage ! That's not something evident, when viewed from the past. If the religious nutjobs' society makes everyone happy, it's an utopia...
On the other hand, reasoning on general happiness leads most of the time to wireheading, ie getting a brain chip that rewards you all the time. Which is another can of worms.
u/Noir_Bass [+3] (2 hours later)
If we're at the point where we have managed to create a provably friendly AI, and have already let it loose...well, that AI is going to BE the government for all practical purposes, whether we realize it or not. Maybe it will let us have the illusion that we're running our own stuff, but in the end it will always have the final word.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+1] Finally, everyone was working together. (3 hours later)
That's what I thought. If only it was truly benevolent, or the only GAI around.
u/Noir_Bass [+2] (3 hours later)
If we fail and make an unfriendly AI, it's quite probably still going to end up running things. And multiple GAI's is not very likely, since in theory the first one to be unleashed will always have an advantage, and will destroy the others inevitably if it finds that they have opposing values.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+1] Finally, everyone was working together. (3 hours later)
That's not quite what happened -- the AI had a civil war with itself over what to do with the human factions that wouldn't accept its governance peacefully.
u/Nepene [+3] (4 hours later)
Democracy serves several functions.
Suppose your AIs are malevolent or actively hostile to society or a part of society. This is a very possible failure mode for any machine or biological creation. You need some clear and well defined mechanism to remove said AI that can't easily be subverted by whatever caused the malevolence in the AI. If they start ordering their mechas to shoot every third civilian in the streets there needs to be a way to stop them. If an enemy nation hacks them you need a way to stop them.
In the event of bad code in the AI you need a way to choose a better AI with better code. If the code has decided that writing fanfiction should be punishable by death there needs to be some mechanism for appeal.
You can just assume that nothing bad will ever happen to your post scarcity society but that's not a hugely realistic assumption.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+2] Finally, everyone was working together. (4 hours later)
This is one of the main reasons why human pilots are still a thing. AI's can advise all they want, but only the human can pull the trigger.
This is why humans are still involved in ruling the universe, albeit an extremely small faction; to hold the gun to the AI's head and say "Do what we want".
u/Nepene [+2] (5 hours later)
http://echa.europa.eu/regulations/reach/authorisation/applications-for-authorisation
This is the sort of regulation that the EU has for products. Anything containing certain chemicals has to supply a massive dossier of info containing tests, simulations, field runs, characterizations which ECHA and countries check over. If they miss a bit of data then skilled scientists from countries and other businesses can rip their reports apart in the public commenting phase. I've read some hilariously passive aggressive comments when they are commenting. Once they get past that skilled scientists dissect every bit of the report and decide if the chemical can be sold in the public.
I'd imagine that would be closer to the norm for AIs- you have in depth regulations about what they have to be like and how they have to be written which vary from purpose to purpose, vary according to what modules you include in them, standard code blocks that all have to have, standard code blocks that anyone can include without comment.
It would take too long if every bullet fired, every chemical submitted required in depth approval. You'd probably have regional or local governments which did a general approval on certain things, with humans being responsible for good management of these things within well defined categories, but a great deal of autonomy for how the AIs are used within those boundaries.
u/None [+3] (7 hours later)
A) As /u/PeridexisErrant noted, you need to examine what function democracy is actually supposed to perform, and what function government is actually supposed to perform. Nastily clever hint: if your society has even-remotely Friendly AI, they ought to understand perfectly well what democracy is for.
B) Seen from a sufficiently advanced point-of-view, there is no such thing as post-scarcity. There is only "resources are replenished, recovered, or collected faster than the mortals can use them." Since mortals inevitably end up wasting more of whatever seems abundant, and since the phrase post-scarcity implies a value choice to keep the people small enough to live effectively nonscarce lifestyles rather than immediately growing everyone to the level of superbeing who would find resources scarce on a planetary scale, there will still be some resource scarcity trade-offs and some economy, but it might take place out of the view of your normal citizens.
u/symmetry81 [+2] (5 days later)
A lack of scarcity means that exit becomes a viable option in a way that it hasn't since beginning of agriculture and you can actually get government by conensus where anybody who doesn't like things can leave to run their own society differently. Traditional societies usually worked in that manner. If that isn't possible for some reason then you've found your scarcity requiring government.
u/autowikibot [+1] (5 days later)
#####
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#### Exit, Voice, and Loyalty:
Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970) is a treatise written by Albert O. Hirschman. The work hinges on a conceptual ultimatum that confronts consumers in the face of deteriorating [quality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_(business)) of goods: either “[exit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_(economics))” or “voice”.
^Interesting: ^Exit-Voice-Loyalty-Neglect ^Model ^| ^Foot ^voting ^| ^Exit ^(economics) ^| ^Albert ^Otto ^Hirschman
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u/None [+1] (15 hours later)
You should read about Liquid Democracy.