Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I realized what bothers me about @vitalik.eth d/acc essay. Even though it is optimistic, it shares with the pessimist side a presumption that technology, as an evolutionary process, *can* be governed according to some notion of human intent. “Tech can/cannot be governed” is a bigger divide than optimism/pessimism
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Vitalik Buterin pfp
Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
I agree that's an important divide! I'm curious how it would translate into practice. For example, in a hypothetical earth where corporate lobbies successfully convinced everyone that climate change is actually good, do you agree that solar power tech would be decades behind where it is on our earth? Why or why not?
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I suspect this is in fact approximately the world we actually live in and renewables are in fact at least a decade behind because fossil fuel industry convinced enough people climate change was not a threat/not real. BP and Shell sat on it for decades.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
But point is, at some point the economics of solar grew compelling enough to escape that attempt to stop it. So exhibit A in governability being impossible in the long term
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Vitalik Buterin pfp
Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
True but even a 10-year delta in when tech becomes available is still a big deal! eg. imagine if internet privacy tech was reliably 10 years ahead of where it has been in practice, but internet surveillance tech was not comparably accelerated. (or vice versa)
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
These scenarios are interesting but I don’t think they can be “chosen” in any meaningful way. The path dependent forking is almost entirely driven by available tech options. What eventually broke Solar stranglehold by big oil was Moore’s law driving pv cell costs down enough with old fabs, not governance…
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
… ie sometimes our side (and you and I are always the good guys of course) gets relative acceleration advantage, sometimes the other side does. It’s largely random tech optionality cards being dealt. Surveillance tech: largely random race between cryptography tech and CCD camera tech
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Connor McCormick ☀️ pfp
Connor McCormick ☀️
@nor
But then this is the (limited) role that governance can play. It can modify incentive landscapes in favor of certain kinds of outcomes. E.g. by funding the incubation of technology that can be foreseen to be beneficial. We know this is possible, it's what has brought us those results of DARPA and the Manhattan Proj
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timbeiko.eth pfp
timbeiko.eth
@tim
If that's true, then doesn't it imply you should try _harder_ to skew the race in your direction? f you can find an under-developed niche, then shouldn't you exploit it? The above somewhat reads like EMH. An average trader not beating the market doesn't imply all prices are rational.
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Matt pfp
Matt
@zkmattwyatt
@vgr @vitalik.eth — I think you both would enjoy a brief dive into Promise Theory as a clue of why something may get acceleration advantage over others It’s a great framework imo for looking at this problem especially promises/impositions & the transfer of influence/directionality of a promise
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