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alyssavance comments on On the Power of Intelligence and Rationality - Less Wrong
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"People use armed force all the time with their neighbors."
No, they really, really don't. Compared with either a). governments or b). people in the ancient world, violence nowadays is really rare. For governments, consider that, in 1900, it was common for a country to spend 10% of its GDP on its military; how many people do you know who spend 10% of their gross pre-tax income on weapons to fight their neighbors with? For people in the ancient world, consider that the murder rate for males before they reached age 25 in pre-agricultural societies was something like 30%; nowadays it's something like 1%.
"On a separate point, while the Nazis had some crazy beliefs, they still excelled in a number of important areas."
Agreed, but what I was saying was that none of these areas involved general intelligence, science, rationality or deliberative reasoning.
"So let's be glad they underrated rationality."
Agreed. My thesis in this post was that rationality, intelligence, and science are the most important factors on the level of a country, but not on the level of an individual. Hence, the Nazis, who were really irrational, succeeded at taking over Germany, but then failed at taking over the world largely through irrational stupidity.
Hitler was known to go over his speeches in retrospect with Goebbels, and note which bits worked and which didn't, so he could make better speeches in future. I regard this as involving deliberative reasoning and general intelligence; there's even an element of the scientific method in it.
This was not phrased correctly. It should have said, "used," and it should have included the threat. Back when governments were weaker and there was more crime and fewer educated people, courts weren't great at punishing violence, so violence and the threat thereof were widespread - look at the historic power of organized crime. This remains true today, but it's less true because our ability to enforce the law has improved.
People used violence when it was effective and they wouldn't get in trouble with other, more powerful people. Nations used violence when it was effective and they wouldn't get in trouble with other, more powerful nations. Nuclear weapons simply changed how much trouble they'd get into, just as better law enforcement monitoring and a lower general crime rate, and falling cultural acceptance have changed how likely people are to get into trouble when they use force. I really don't think the two examples are as different as you claim they are.
The major change that nuclear weapons have brought to international affairs is not that the weaker party in a conflict gets into more trouble, it's that the stronger party does too. There is not much to be gained from fighting a war when, even if you win, your major cities are destroyed.
Certainly, sufficiently great (superhuman) rationality and intelligence could have taken over the world. But I'm not convinced that a group of sane, rational, intelligent mere humans at the head of Nazi Germany had a high probability of conquering the whole world (which would include the USA). The Nazis already did much better than could be expected on average for humans. How much better than that could you be, if you were in their place? What would you do exactly?