Hi folks, it’s my turn this week.
I’m planning to share some ideas in progress about the concept of Moloch (developed by Scott Alexander, and often seen as central to understanding the metacrisis) and how Evolutionary Game Theory can be used to clarify both what Moloch is, and how we should respond to it.
This ties into some previous discussions here on the forum about game theory and values.
And we now have a Luma calendar for these meetings that should make things a bit more accessible:
Looking forward to it.
Question on the time. Per Luma, the session is scheduled for: 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM PDT. But up till now, these calls have always been 8:00 AM -9:00 AM PDT. Is this an intentional shift? Or an artifact of something else?
Probably due to the fact European daylight savings time ended on the weekend…
Makes sense. Our daylight time ends in the upcoming weekend. So the hour changes for me this time only.
This video would be a good prerequisite for studying Moloch.
Change the last verse of this song to “beware of Moloch” and see how it works as theme music for the metacrisis.
Rufus rough notes / comments
PD / Moloch is credible as a description of many situations that have happened or could happen.
BTW on the piece in the wiki: Meditations on Moloch
Then the question is how do we get out of it …
[Interesting sociological question]
Seems many people who don’t have a classic academic background or know about political economy etc are engaging with these kind of ideas via moloch. so why was it successful? (Especially in Engineer / Rationalist / EA community).
If we follow Turchin’s logic to the end, it seems like global “ultrasociety” (beyond Moloch) would be a likely development. The macro-trend has been toward collaboration in larger and larger social formations. We just need to stay on trend.
A problem with that, of course, is the trend toward collaboration in larger social units flowed from imperial expansion and global conflict. Nukes, missiles, drones, etc. make such a fight-to-death, winner take the spoils model of establishing a global society rather high cost. So can we get there without the fight to the death first?
Here is where I find it necessary to exit Turchin’s model and delve more into psychology, culture, and consciousness. If we have to learn everything the hard way, WWIII seems like just a matter of time …. If by contrast we are able to visualize future dangers and adjust prior to disaster striking, then perhaps we can establish global governance without prior Armageddon. My own PD take on this is there absolutely no downside to working to avoid Armageddon. How does anyone “win” or “maximize” in a WWIII scenario?
Exactly - in game theoretic term avoiding existential risk is actually a simple cooperation game where there are rational incentives to cooperate. But because of lack of understanding of the risks, cultural factors, etc. agents’ actual preferences can be modelled as a PD (where the payoffs represent their perceived utilities rather than their actual utilities).
Yea this was great. This bit I think brings out the way in which thinking about the PD is still very relevant in today’s world - and to Second Renaissance.
Here’s one that I listened to today. Very interesting to see how Martin Nowak combines deep understanding of evolutionary game theory with a specifically Catholic religious perspective, especially given that we’ve been talking in this space about the possibility of rejuvenating existing religious frameworks.
Love the animation. Through that I also came across this on Nowak’s spatial models:
A few thoughts about the bit at the end on the “game theory of love.”
To me, spiritual practice in general renders identity fluid and expansive, so the notion of a “game” with distinct “players” and “payoffs” seems incoherent in that context. To me, in so far as spiritual practice has a goal or payoff, it lies in tension resolution. Metaphors of call and response work better for the phenomenonal experience of that process IMO rather than competing with anyone external. There is not really an “other” to overcome. The experienced tension is profoundly intimate. Moreover, the “prize” for moments clarity and tranquility arising from such tension resolution is quite likely to be even greater tension or sense of lack as one drills into further layers and depths. The “win” is in the “game” itself. Turning away from ”the game” will, however, absolutely manifest in a sense of loss. The most triumphant sort of victory in a game such as this is indistinguishable from surrender.
I agree, to become a winner you have to make a loser.
But still, to the analogy, many folks, myself included, speak of games from a non-trivial perspective of thinking strategy, rather than reducing life to something trivial as an actual game. Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse is such a deeply compassionate and beautiful book that deals with this notion in a manner I think you would enjoy. His idea is that highest gameplay, is one that enables us to keep playing, whereas winning ends the game, making it a finite rather than infinite game. I have a PDF if you would like?
Carse’s position reminds me of Johan Huizinga in Homo Ludens. For Huizinga, play is the origin of culture in general. Huizinga encompass all manner of ritual - dance, music, costume, etc. as “play”. Ancient lacrosse, for example, was more of a religious ritual than a competitive sport.
Anyway, I don’t really want to go down semantic rabbit holes about “games” and “play” and “strategy” and so on. PD-style game theory implies atomic actors separated from one another, in which the “winner” is indifferent to the suffering of the “loser”. Huizinga’s more anthropological notion of play is more like participation in the mystery of existence, practiced in societies for which the notion of an atomic individual scarcely existed. In primal human cultures, PD would be nonsensical. My sense of the future of culture is something like a reconnection with with the primal, in which PD will again be nonsensical.
I guess that rather than a game theory of love, I would prefer a love theory of games.
