These notes are about clarifying and improving my thoughts on the very biggest picture stuff. I could spend a long time on this. For now I've pencilled in 2-12 weeks. I see this as _orientation_: a means of deciding which orchards to explore, which experiments to run, and, eventually, what to work on for the next 2-10 years. This project combines "seems useful" with "seems fun". So... let's go! - Project sheet: [[> Big picture]] --- ## Orientation - [[Where are we?]] - 13.8 billion years have passed, but the universe is probably just getting started. - World GDP is really kicking off. - We are genetic survival machines. Evolutionary processes continue. - [[Metaphysics]] - Metametaphysics - Ontology, mind-independence, propositions - Naturalism vs non-naturalism - [[Evolutionary theory]] - [[Technological determinism]] - Multiverse, many worlds? - ... ## What should we do? - Theory of knowledge - [[What are beliefs, what is knowledge, how do we acquire beliefs]] - Social epistemology - [[Theories of truth]] - [[Pragmatism]] - What's the water we are swimming in? - Universalism, Christian values - Politics and the unthinkable - [[What does good reasoning look like]] - [[Decision theory]] - [[Hume on reason]] - [[Ecological rationality]] - [[Are you asking a great question]] - [[Beware scientism]] - [[Cluster thinking vs sequence thinking]] - [[In theory, optimise. In practice, satisfice, and pay disproportionate attention to risk of ruin.]] - [[Argumentative theory of reason]] - Role of dialog in reasoning - What are reasons and how do we recognise them? - [[Prudential vs moral reasons]] - Role of intuition in philosophy - [[List of intuitions that philosophers have claimed are self-evident]] - How do we learn? - Observation and imitation - What does good education look like? - Learning as evolution in the brain - [[What is philosophy]] and [[What is moral philosophy]] - [[The philosophical temperament]] - [[Truth-seeking vs way-seeking]] - Limits, quietism - Philosophy as humanistic discipline - Ecological philosophy - Under what conditions does philosophy make progress? - (Progress studies for philosophy...) - Creating and discovering - [[Minimum viable moral philosophy]] - [[Yes-saying]] - Theory of value - Meta-ethics - [[Flavours of moral realism]] - - Realism and religious thought - [[Cognitivism vs non-cognitivism]] - [[Deontic vs evaluative]] - [[Impartiality]] - [[Agent-neutral vs agent-relative reasons]] - [[Buck-passing theories]] - [[Evolutionary debunking arguments]] - [[Moral epistemology]] - [[Acting with uncertainty about what is valuable, and what norms are best]] - [[Ethical intutionism]] - Rawls: fact of reasonable pluralism - What matters? - [[Theory of value does not entail theory of right action]] - [[Definitions of social impact]] - [[Commensurability & pluralism]] - [[What would matter to any rational mind? V.s. What matters to humans.]] - Hedonism best answer for all rational minds. - [[Hedonism is the view that positive conscious experiences are the only terminal source of value, and negative conscious experiences are the only terminal source of disvalue]] - [[=Sharon Hewitt Rawlette]] - This does not imply hedonium!! Sure, the most valuable universe might be hedonium, but you don't have to read off from theory of value to maximise value. - But we need to answer the question for humans. - Would it be good for human elites to shed their attraction to excellence - Humans, we need to stick to common sense, make gradual improvements at the margin. Beware radical proposals. - Intuitively, I really want to spread perfectionist memes. Maybe I can cash that out in terms of pleasure. - Would I accept that, if it turns out there's a happy pill, we can drop the perfectionist memes? - [[Transhumanism]] - [[List of arguments against transhumanism]] - Impartiality vs partiality - Hedonism vs pluralism - Maximising vs satisficing - Pluralism - Debunking arguments - Axiology, population ethics - ... - Normative ethics - How do we get from a theory of value to a theory of right action? - How much do we even need a theory of value? Could focus on right action and let value take care of itself. - [[Living with utilitarianism]] - [[Maximising vs satisficing]] - [[Negative responsibility is responsibility for what we fail to prevent from happening]] - General principles and particular cases - What do we care about? - What should we care about? - Decision procedures - act - ommission - Two-thirds utilitarianism - Taleb: moral thought works at local level, start there, be very cautious about scaling to global/universal - Greene: local morality for cooperation within groups vs global meta-morality for cooperation between groups - What is wisdom? - Politics - Error correction - Truth seeking - [[Differential intellectual development]] - Differential technological development - [[Post-liberalism]] - Policy - Generators - Science and technology - Institutions - Quietism, attentiveness, limits of language - temptation ## Big ideas that help make sense of things - [[Cosmology]] - Economics - There are always trade offs - Price goes up, consumption goes down (usually) - Opportunity cost - Incentives matter - Markets as co-ordination mechanism - Price discovery - Efficient market hypothesis - Market failures - Externalities - Public goods - ... - Marginal returns - Models of economic growth - Networks - Maximising vs satisficing - [[Social choice theory]] - Evolution and evolutionary psychology - Minds that reproduce - Social function of reason - Local maxima, constraints on iterative evolutionary processes - How we get stuck in bad places, and how we get unstuck - Deception - Signalling - Game theory - Fallibility, error correction - Evolution of everything - First-order and second-order desires - Complexity & network science - ... - Reasoning - Expected value, thinking in bets - Thinking on the margin - [[Inferential distance]] - Pragmatism - You're mostly wrong about most things most of the time - Social cognition - Mimetics - Hive mind - Crucial considerations - Leverage - Value of information - Dealing with uncertainty, unknown unknowns - Story telling and metaphor - Forecasting / expert judgement - Metrics - Contrarianism - Edge - Downside hedging - Ecological reasoning - Creativity - Statistics - Distributions: normal, power law, ... - Noise - Mean reversion - Meditation, self-awareness, self-knowledge - Careful observation of your own mind leads to insight - You can retrain your mind - You are massively shaped by your peers and mentors - History - Communication tech - Networks - Sociology - Dysfunction in academia - Great Founder Theory - ... ## What are the drivers of history? How to improve this question? Is it basically about: what are the leverage points? - [[Technology and population growth are the main drivers of economic growth.]] - [[The Industrial Revolution in Europe and the US took place between 1760 and 1840]] - [[World GDP and GDP per capita were basically flat until the Industrial Revolution]]. - [[World population grew very slowly until the Industrial Revolution]] - Does this mean it was mostly tech, and population just followed tech? #todo - What are the drivers of technological development? - ... - Theories of creativity, invention, innovation - Generator + filter - Great Man - Great Founder Theory - Scenius / small groups - ... - Networks - What is technology? Is it worth splitting out social tech into a diff category? - [[Evolution]] is a powerful explanatory lens. - David Deutsch vs ...? ## What are the most important things playing out in the next 50 years? - Technology - [[Reading inbox]] is already a big deal, and may be the most important thing this century. - Biotech - Embryo selection - ... - Nanotechnology - Comms tech esp internet - Blockchain? - VR/AR - Surveillance - Space tech - Things no one is talking about yet - See also [the 80k list](https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/) - Who else has lists like this? - Catastrophic risk - What are the generators? - Existential risk - Climate change - Fertility crisis - Geopolitics - Risk of great power war - Shifting power balance - National and global inequality - Transhumanism - EA?? - UFOs?? - Things no one is talking about yet ## What will the next 100-1000 years be like? - [[Things widely considered normal now, that may seem barbaric or crazy in 100 years time]] ## What about the next 1000-100,000 years? - How long have we got? ## What is missing from the above? What is wrong, or off? - ... ## What is my role in all this? - Should I go "all in" on... - AI safety? - Attention design / infraethics / cognitive enhancement / learning / aspiration - Something about transhumanism - Something about GPR - Something about philosophy - Movement building / promoting good ideas / education - [[Know your strengths and limitations]] ## Misc ideas / ways of seeing that seem notable - Information diet - Pace layers - Geoffrey West's scale stuff - Personal / local economy - Resillience - Antifragility / hormesis - [Industrial literacy](https://rootsofprogress.org/industrial-literacy) - ...