Jag heter Björn och är snart 50 år. Det var mycket länge sedan jag kunde säga något som jag faktiskt kan säga just nu - när jag läser kapitel 9 i boken Beginning of Infinity av David Deutsch, "Optimism" - nämligen: Detta förändrar min världsbild!
När det gäller pudelns kärna, optimismen, så är det bl. a. just Deutschs (om)definition som jag finner omvälvande. Ondska i detta sammanhang handlar inte om något vänsterflum om endast strukturella förklaringar till brott eller förnekandet av moraliskt ansvar. Här handlar det i stället om allt som förhindrar eller begränsar framsteg. En allvarlig opportunity cost, vilken är moraliskt förkastlig att inte minimera, är alltså att vara pessimist.
Försiktighetsprincipen framstår som orimlig eftersom det inte finns något Spaceship Earth eller några good old days. Den enda vägen är framåt. Att allt annat än teknikoptimism är inskränkt är sannerligen en tankeställare för mig! Att "chansa" genom att förbruka för tillfället begränsade resurser i hopp om att upptäcka fler och bättre förutsättningar är inte oansvarigt utan självklart. Detta går verkligen på tvärs med mina käpphästar.
Och detta är bara ett av flera teman i boken som ger mig svindel. Ett annat exempel är den oändliga kapaciteten hos människor och vetenskap - även när det gäller etik och metafysik.
Enligt Deutsch så har vi alltid befunnit oss i "kris", just genom att inte handla tillräckligt.
Kortfattat kan man nog säga att jag hittills undermedvetet närt illusionerna om Spaceship Earth, Principle of Mediocrity och försiktighetsprincipen. Alla dessa tre har jag nu blivit övertygad om att mjuka upp. Jag har också rört mig närmare både metafysisk och etisk realism (misstänker att jag misshandlar dessa termer något). Och jag har tagit åt mig argumentationen att mänskligt tänkande, trots brister, manifesterar en unik universell beräkningsmekanism som givet tillräcklig tid och förutsättningar kan ge oss/universum i det närmaste evigt liv och obegränsad utveckling.
Eller så här: Jag har insett att teknikoptimism, i någon mening, är och alltid har varit nödvändig - och kanske t.o.m. ett moraliskt imperativ.
16 aug. 2016
9 aug. 2016
Good and bad nationalism
Recently, I read an exchange concerning good and bad nationalism. One commentator expressed the following two sentiments, among others:
(1) "It is not he task of the state to reprogram its population to conform with the state’s values. The opposite is true: the state has to bend itself to the population’s values”
(2) ”Multiculturalism just plain doesn’t work, and also violates my values…”
This piqued my interest. Personally, I don’t agree with (1) but I understand the position and can sympathize to some degree. My question is what the logical consequences of the combined positions would be.
It seems to me that they lead to a world of insulated states, each inhabited by people who share the same values - not primarily as a consequence of cultural inculcation, but rather by individuals repeatedly choosing to remain / reenter that particular state from some abstract state of nature. If an individual or a minority of citizens in some state feel that they do not fit in, they may either seek out another state and ask admittance (but may be rejected); or they can found a state of their own, if possible.
Is there any cultural drift at all in such a world, either intra- or interstate?
If so, I guess it could also happen that a majority of people within a state at one point feel that they no longer agree with the values of that state. At that stage, the state could either split into two or more new states or - and this seems more plausible to me - work to influence the minority to update, as it were, their values to conform to the majority view.
All of this is compatible with democracy. But it seems unwieldy. Also, I guess it takes some magical thinking to imagine that it leads to the best possible society and outcomes in any one state, not to mention in most or all states. At any rate, global coordination seems hard to achieve, if it is at all desired. (In fact, it may perhaps be described as multiculturalism on a global scale.)
The big question is, of course: What does the ”best” society mean? One approximation is to say that it is the kind of society that fits best with its citizens’ current values. Another is to say that it is a society which caters to everyone’s actual long term interests - even if these seem to contradict some current interests.
Even if you are not an authoritarian rationalist globalist socialist, it seems to me that any functioning democracy (or other society) must involve some kind of (mild) coercion, preferably in the direction of everyone’s long-term best interest. A collection of ”opt-out” states does not seem promote the common good (as I define it). Furthermore, it does not seem practically tenable.
(1) "It is not he task of the state to reprogram its population to conform with the state’s values. The opposite is true: the state has to bend itself to the population’s values”
(2) ”Multiculturalism just plain doesn’t work, and also violates my values…”
This piqued my interest. Personally, I don’t agree with (1) but I understand the position and can sympathize to some degree. My question is what the logical consequences of the combined positions would be.
It seems to me that they lead to a world of insulated states, each inhabited by people who share the same values - not primarily as a consequence of cultural inculcation, but rather by individuals repeatedly choosing to remain / reenter that particular state from some abstract state of nature. If an individual or a minority of citizens in some state feel that they do not fit in, they may either seek out another state and ask admittance (but may be rejected); or they can found a state of their own, if possible.
Is there any cultural drift at all in such a world, either intra- or interstate?
If so, I guess it could also happen that a majority of people within a state at one point feel that they no longer agree with the values of that state. At that stage, the state could either split into two or more new states or - and this seems more plausible to me - work to influence the minority to update, as it were, their values to conform to the majority view.
All of this is compatible with democracy. But it seems unwieldy. Also, I guess it takes some magical thinking to imagine that it leads to the best possible society and outcomes in any one state, not to mention in most or all states. At any rate, global coordination seems hard to achieve, if it is at all desired. (In fact, it may perhaps be described as multiculturalism on a global scale.)
The big question is, of course: What does the ”best” society mean? One approximation is to say that it is the kind of society that fits best with its citizens’ current values. Another is to say that it is a society which caters to everyone’s actual long term interests - even if these seem to contradict some current interests.
Even if you are not an authoritarian rationalist globalist socialist, it seems to me that any functioning democracy (or other society) must involve some kind of (mild) coercion, preferably in the direction of everyone’s long-term best interest. A collection of ”opt-out” states does not seem promote the common good (as I define it). Furthermore, it does not seem practically tenable.
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