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Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

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Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#111

Post by TeMPOraL »

renewiltord wrote: post #85
fn1 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keeping global warming below 2°C is a pipe dream I think/hope it's possible by a war-mobilization type of effort, where industries start working together for the goal. We not only have to stop all emissions to zero, but should probably start removing co2 from the atmosphere as well: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/carbon-dioxide-remov... https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/wanna-limit-global-w... But th…

You will never do this easily. If I run a developing nation there is absolutely no way I accept that you, a developed nation with a century of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, will merely accept a reduction of your annual emissions. I will pump as much CO2 as necessary to raise my population into prosperity and until you have taken out enough GHG to match my historic emissions you're going to have to either take me w…

It's absolutely true, but put this way, it lends an argument towards force-subjugating the entire planet under one government just to end the bickering about fairness. Global warming isn't fair.

What I'd honestly want to see happening instead is developed nations doubling down on greentech, and donating all of that (+ expertise and IP) to developing nations, so that the latter can leapfrog the CO₂-intensive energy generation methods. After all, the developing nations aren't into greenhouse emissions for the sake of greenhouse emissions - they just want to have the same level of prosperity for their people as the West enjoys. So I say we should just give them the means to achieve that without burning fossil fuels, for free - and screw intellectual property and some perceived "fairness". This is a global problem, we're all in this together.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#112

Post by qubex »

simonh wrote: post #84
aeternum wrote: post #11

I'd argue the cold war was closer to the 'hinge of history'. In fact on this very day 9/26 in 1983, a not very well known soviet lieutenant colonel prevented what would very likely have been all out atomic war. In the grand scheme of things, everything that happened this year is probably minor in comparison to Petrov's decision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

I think the Cold War, and even WW2 are part of the current period when it comes to the ‘hinge of history’ argument. They’re not saying this year is the most influential, or even this decade. I think it comes down to the explosive industrial growth and technological advances over the last few hundred years, and next hundred years or so. It’s a unique confluence of incredible capability with little understanding of the…

> Nobody 100 years ago had the slightest clue that the industrialization at the time could cause global warming, for example.

This is incorrect. The first measurements and effects were calculated at the end of the 19th Century (quoted as 1896).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_scie...

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#114

Post by qubex »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #107
lrem wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid democracies are inherently unstable. Athenian lasted 200 years and got swallowed up by Macedonian autocracy. Roman lasted 500 years and got overthrown by the army. Polish lasted 350 years and the parliament voted to allow neighbouring empires to divide the country. The US is at 250 years and people are seriously worried about it devolving into either Gilead or Cyberpunk any moment now.

It's not just democracies. I can't think of a system of governance that's stable over centuries. Oppressive regimes tend to implode once amassed suffering reaches a peak of rebellion, or evolve into something more benign (and potentially get conquered then). Even Rome, the long-lasting empire, wasn't ruled the same way throughout its history. I think that's what GP meant when they wrote that "we could end up in a sup…

The millenary histories of the Egyptian and Chinese empires disagree. Yes, dynasties came and went, but those polities endured for thousands of years—indeed one could argue that the ongoing governance of China by the Communist Party is just the latest dynastic swing.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#115

Post by thinkingemote »

brianberns wrote: post #3
adamnemecek wrote: post #2

I have a hunch every society in the past thought that.

And it was probably true for most of them. The stakes for humanity keep rising, so "now" is usually the most important time in history.

If the stakes keep on rising, how high would they be 50 years from now? And in 200? 2000?

How high were the stakes 300 years ago? Should we think people living in 1720 didn't have it that bad compared to now? Will people in the future look at now and think the same?

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#116

Post by TeMPOraL »

drivebycomment wrote: post #61
scsilver wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has Nature even been so forgiving?

No. Life is a constant struggle against the encroaching entropy and I suspect keeping civilization going will never get easier. That said, coronavirus is not even close to being a threat to human civilization. Compare this to 1918 Spanish flu and the contrast can't be clearer. Despite enormous growth in human population and much higher connectivity, we are managing global death toll an order of magnitude lower. We ab…

Yes, but we're stretching our global economies thin in the process. At this point in our civilizational development, it's the systems that are important. If this or a future pandemic pushes most economies past breaking point, the death toll will very quickly skyrocket from a mere million to a bit larger billions dying in wars and starvation.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#117

Post by WalterBright »

BurningFrog wrote: post #47
sushshshsh wrote: post #8

I was educated at my university that the hinge of history was actually World War I. Hundreds of millions died in horrific new waus, the world centralized around a pole of power, and basically the world has only been getting better since.

WW1 is a very good candidate. It created the Soviet Union and Hitler and pretty much all of history since. It's also extra interesting, because if Gavrilo Princip hadn't randomly ran into the Archduke's car, history might have turned out very differently.

There would have just been another spark for WW1.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#118

Post by TeMPOraL »

qubex wrote: post #114
TeMPOraL wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just democracies. I can't think of a system of governance that's stable over centuries. Oppressive regimes tend to implode once amassed suffering reaches a peak of rebellion, or evolve into something more benign (and potentially get conquered then). Even Rome, the long-lasting empire, wasn't ruled the same way throughout its history. I think that's what GP meant when they wrote that "we could end up in a sup…

The millenary histories of the Egyptian and Chinese empires disagree. Yes, dynasties came and went, but those polities endured for thousands of years—indeed one could argue that the ongoing governance of China by the Communist Party is just the latest dynastic swing.

I'll have to read up on Egypt and pre-XX-century China. How oppressive were these dynasties typically? What did the life look like for a regular subject?

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#119

Post by Lammy »

sushshshsh wrote: post #8

I was educated at my university that the hinge of history was actually World War I. Hundreds of millions died in horrific new waus, the world centralized around a pole of power, and basically the world has only been getting better since.

> basically the world has only been getting better since

You made me really curious how we measure this! Sorry this turned into a massive wall of text but considering how depressing every news cycle has been for the past few years I hoped it would feel grounding to be able to put some numbers to things, even if they aren't happy numbers :)

Worldwide average human is what I want an idea of, but the closest and largest "good" or "bad" measurement I see in the news on a regular basis is USA economic health as a graph of GDP-per-capita of the entire economy, no divisions based on any geographic boundaries since the economy is borderless, with 'health' seemingly the result of Worthington's Law on the entire-economy scope.

U.S. Economy health data doesn't seem to provide a path to any physical human scope at all, since . I hate the idea of defining "good life" in monetary terms at all, but it seems impossible with only the whole-USA data due to income inequality within a region like the Bay Area, huge disparities in other regions compared to the coasts, people who don't "participate" in the economy directly or at all, etc. The graph of USA GDP growth over time did show a general upward curve, never under 0%, in a way that felt like things getting "generally better" as we hope. Looking at headlines made the data more confusing though, like Bloomberg's from a 2019 report:

> "U.S. GDP Grew a Disappointing 1.2% in Second Quarter — Economic growth was well below expectations; cautious business investment offset robust consumer spending"

I had assumed "Good Health" (or at least "Okay" health) was growth over 0.0%, but I guess not if growing by 1.2% was disappointing. The headline is unclear if that's some sort of official expectation percentage or just theirs, but since it doesn't say what the expected rate was I dunno.

I gave up on the officially-published data being usable here, but I remembered a bunch of press in 2018 about California having the 5th largest economy in the world, larger than the UK's. No "world" or even "USA" average would come from CA-only data, but at least it might be personally fulfilling for me. Unfortunately all the news websites ultimately just link back to this tweet as the original source https://twitter.com/psaffo/status/992530974515781633

I'm aware of the World Happiness Index, but it asks people to describe their own happiness in their own words based on their own area which is useless here. I guess I will have to trust that US GDP growth has the possibility to be an okay representation on the country-wide scale, as long as any growth is separated-equally per capita :)

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#120

Post by chippy »

watwut wrote: post #99
chippy wrote: post #91

For those who would like to delve a bit deeper into the Hinge of History, this is the link from the article and is well worth the read. It was submitted here 2 days ago and got zero points! https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XXLf6FmWujkxna3E6/... Its often a human mistake to think that right now is the most important time ever because it is literally the moment we are in. With the perspective of history and wi…

> It can inoculate you against being manipulated by urgency-based calls for action. Perspective of history however does not show that being passive is universally what is needed more that if we wait, it gonna be alright. Now that current need is not urgent. I mean, not being the most important historical moment does not imply it is not important for us and those right after us. Generally we should seek to avoid those…

Agreed! It's one thing to be aware of rhetorical tricks of urgency and its another not to do anything.

I think it's very telling that the post that started this whole thing off was on an Effective Altruism forum.

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