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Problem Library

Advancing technology has unimaginable side effects, see the invention of the plough and the impact that had on how humans perceived the world.

The Metacrisis (Part 2) refers to the range of existential risks facing humanity where people acting in their own self-interest leads to terrible results for civilisation.

Mantra

A well defined problem represents an opportunity to make meaningful progress

The Metacrisis​

Trying to solve the metacrisis by giving lots of control to central authorities could lead to oppressive dystopias.

  1. Environmental issues: Climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, unsustainable resource extraction, etc. driven by an economic system requiring exponential growth on a finite planet.
  2. Technological risks: Potential catastrophic impacts from advanced technologies like AI, biotech, cyber weapons, etc. becoming more accessible and powerful.
  3. Fragility of global systems: Increasing vulnerability of interconnected global supply chains, institutions, and international order to disruption.
  4. Coordination failures: Inability to adequately address global challenges due to multipolar traps, arms races, short-term incentives, etc. that prevent necessary cooperation.

If everyone does their own thing without [coordination], things will likely end in catastrophe. The key challenge is finding a "third way" that avoids both catastrophic outcomes and dystopian centralized control.

Domains​

Everything comes back to balancing the path to fulfilment

List​

  1. Trust
  2. Crony Capitalism
  3. The Industrial War Complex
  4. Attention (Values) Manipulation
  5. People desire fame over character
  6. AI scams and digital pollution
  7. The young can't afford a home, the old are getting older, both share loneliness.
  8. Pollution, Digital and Physical

Distrust​

Trust in our institutions is at an all-time low. The media, government, and corporations are all distrusted by large numbers of the population.

Crony Capitalism​

  • Nepotism
  • Ego over ethics
  • Short-term thinking
  • Cannot trust centralised power
  • The rich keep becoming much richer

Moloch​

The enemy within. Technology shapes our perception of reality.

The dance with evolving technology that empowers can also destroy us. Technology shapes humanities perception of reality far more than we shape it.

Some technologies more reliably make the world better than others. We need active human intention to choose the directions that we want, as the formula of "maximize profit" will not arrive at them automatically - Techno Optimism, Vitalik