2026-03-22
Unprincipled stances lead to reverse polarisation
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- If you read about politicians, journalists and social media influencers, you soon realise the following:
- Some of them make a principled defence in favour of free speech, or against political violence, or against bribery, or against misleading your voterbase, or similar. Example: Glenn Greenwald
- Others pay lipservice to these principles but violate them when it suits their interests. Example: Basically every presidential candidate in the last 20 years lol. Robert Caro.
- Atleast some of people in the latter group are people who first tried to be in the former group, but realised there are practical limits to how much power you can get this way.
- However, as more and more people do the latter, both in positions of some influence, and the public, the more that people of the other political side also do the same.
- I too am not an absolute believer in democracy. I don't think democracy will survive creation of ASI. I am not confident we can pause AI research via democratic means, and I don't want to gamble the fate of the species on the belief that pausing AI can be done via democratic means in 5 years. I will genuinely respect myself less as a person if I was some high-minded idealist and the world ended as a result. Fuck idealism.
- All that being said, as a practical matter, it is important to note that if you take a stance that is opportunist not principled, then people on the other side also get inspired to do the same themselves. This might actually make it easier for them to win.
- I seem to be taking this weird position that I need to violate democratic rules in order to defend democracy in order to pause AI. Well actually no, I am not defending democracy, I just want a Big Mob to go destroy all the compute clusters and imprison all the people trying to build ASI. This is not the same thing as defending democracy.
- It is important for me to remember then, that I don't actually believe in democracy anymore, I just believe in Big Mobs. Sad but true.
- Part of me still believes in democracy and part of me doesn't. The latter is currently winning, based on hard evidence regarding well ... most of US history lol. The US intelligence has been unaccountable to the public for like 80 years at this point, and I don't expect this to get fixed via democratic means in the next 5 years.
Update
- I just realised the same is true for capitalism?
- Some capitalists make a principled defence for capitalism and free markets and playing long-term games. Example: Naval Ravikant. Paul Graham.
- Some capitalists pay lipservice to capitalism, but then do things like purchase regulators and politicians and even intelligence community members, in order to distort markets and build a monopoly. Example: Marc Andreessen. Sam Altman. Peter Thiel.
I think I am still grieving at some level that my ideals of democracy and capitalism are both at risk of dying, and I will personally have to go kill them (not just in thought but in action).
Update
- Also worth remembering that once you build a reputation as not having principled belief in democracy or capitalism, then you can't go back? You can't actually call out anyone or claim a moral high ground anymore. I might have an issue with this. Need to think more. This seems very important, as this is a conflict between my past self and future self.
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