timujin comments on Rationality Quotes December 2013 - Less Wrong

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Comment author: timujin 02 December 2013 03:08:31PM -1 points [-]

"You flatter me. But still, what advice would you give the Almighty? What, in your opinion, would the Almighty have to do so that you'd be able to say: the world is now truly good and beautiful?" Budach smiled approvingly, leaned comfortably back in his armchair and folded his hands across his stomach. Full of interest and anticipation, Kyra peered into the physician's face. "All right then," he said, "if you so desire. I would tell the Almighty: 'Great Creator, I do not know your plan; maybe it's simply not your intention to make mankind good and happy. Nevertheless, I beg you: let it happen--it would be so easy for you to accomplish--that all men have sufficient bread, meat, and wine! Provide them with shelter and clothing, let hunger and want disappear from the face of the earth, and all that separates men from each other." 'That would be all?" asked Rumata. "Does it seem too little to you?" Rumata shook his head slowly from side to side. "God would answer you: This would be no blessing for mankind. For the strong of your world take away from the weak whatever I gave them and the weak would be as poor as before." "I would beg God to protect the poor. "Enlighten the cruel rulers,' I would say." "Cruelty is a mighty force. Once the rulers rid themselves of their cruel ways they would lose their power. And other cruel men would take their place." Budach's friendly face grew suddenly somber. "Then punish the cruel men," he said with determination, "and lead them away from the path of evil, so that the strong may not be cruel to their weaker brothers." "It is man's nature to be weak from the moment he is born. He will only grow strong when there is no one stronger than he is. And if the cruel ones among the strong are punished and removed from their ranks, they will simply be replaced by the relatively stronger ones from among the throng of the weak. And the newly strong ones will become cruel in their turn. That would mean that eventually all men would have to be punished, and this I do not want to do." "You have greater insight, Almighty Lord. Therefore arrange that mankind will obtain all they need and thus avoid that they will rob each other of whatever you gave them." 'This solution wouldn't be a blessing for mankind either," sighed Rumata. "They would not reap profit from this. For if they obtain everything from my hand without any effort on their part, they will forget what it is to work and labor; they will lose their taste for living. As time goes on they'll become domestic animals whom I will have to feed and clothe--and that for all eternity." "Don't give them everything at once!" said Budach excitedly. "Give it to them slowly, gradually!" "Gradually mankind will take everything they need anyhow." Budach's smile became embarrassed. "Now I can see that things are not quite so simple," he said. "I've never really thought about the problems ... I believe we have discussed all possibilities now. However," he leaned forward, "there exists still another possibility: Ordain that mankind will love work and knowledge above all, that work and wisdom will be regarded by them as their sole reason for being!" Yes, thought Rumata, we've already considered such experiments. Mass hypno-induction, positive remoralization, exposure to hypnotic radiation from three equatorial satellites ... This is an alternative I might choose perhaps," he said. "But could it be justified if I were to rob mankind of its history? Does it make sense to replace one type of man with another? Would this not mean in the end that one would wipe this mankind off the face of the earth and create another in its place?" Budach frowned and remained silent, busy with his own thoughts. From below the windows came again the melancholy groaning of heavily laden carts. Suddenly Budach spoke softly: "Then, oh, Lord, remove us from the face of the earth and create us anew, make us better men this time, more perfect beings. Or, better still--leave us the way we are, but ordain that we can follow our own path!" "My heart is heavy with sorrow," Rumata said slowly, "but this is not within my power."

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Hard to be a God

Comment author: Jiro 02 December 2013 03:42:08PM *  8 points [-]

This quote betrays a limited imagination. God could, for instance, make it so that people just automatically become full every day if they don't eat, or he could make it so that anyone who tried to steal would instantly faint.

Furthermore, the fact remains that in the real world, some people do have adequate food and shelter, are not powerful, and yet don't have it taken from them. If God were to magically give everyone food and shelter, even if he did not stop theft, there may be corrupt third world countries where there would be rampant theft and people still ended up starving, but there'd be a lot fewer homeless in first world countries (especially if he eliminated all mental illness at the same time).

As for the argument is that providing people with things would eliminate man's motive to do work, there's a big gap between "food and shelter" and "able to live comfortably on your salary".

Also, there's a difference between changing mankind's psychology (which I agree would pose problems) and merely physically changing mankind. A world where, say, all drunk people who tried to drive home were teleported home would contain less suffering with little downside. Likewise for a world that doesn't contain birth defects or cancer.

This is a rationality quote?

Comment author: Lumifer 02 December 2013 04:33:23PM *  3 points [-]

This quote betrays a limited imagination.

Not quite, it makes much more sense within the context of the novel from which it's taken. In particular...

God could, for instance, make it so

In the novel, there is no God. The plot is similar to one of Iain Banks' Culture novels, Inversions (though it was written much earlier than Banks) -- there is an advanced starfaring civilization which has agents/helpers/guides on a medieval-tech planet and they are trying to improve things on that planet. Rumata is one of those agents and while his capabilities are magical and awesome from the point of view of the locals, he is very much not a god.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 02 December 2013 05:45:41PM *  5 points [-]

Indeed. To expand on that a bit more:

The titular phrase is a line in the book, something that Rumata thinks to himself while attempting to explain, for the twentieth, futile, time, to one of the natives (a populist revolutionary leader of sorts) that he is not a god; and that, though he does possess great and awesome powers (i.e. advanced weaponry), he refuses to provide them to the natives. The constraints here are not just practical, but moral:

— Don Rumata, do you remember how disappointed I was, when I found out who you are? I hate priests, and it galls me that their deceitful tales have turned out to be true. But a poor rebel must extract a benefit from any circumstance. The priests say that the gods wield bolts of lightning... Don Rumata, I am in great need of lightning bolts, to smash the walls of the castles.
Rumata sighed deeply. After his miraculous helicopter rescue, Arata had insistently demanded answers. Rumata attempted to explain, he even pointed out Sol in the night sky - a distant, barely visible star. But the rebel understood only one thing: the cursed priests are right, beyond the heavenly firmanent indeed live gods, benevolent and all-powerful. And from then on every conversation with Rumata he reduced to one thing: god, since you do exist, give me your power, as that is the best that you can do.
And each time Rumata kept silent, or shifted the conversation to another topic.
- Don Rumata, - said the rebel, - why do you not want to help us?
...
- Let's not speak of this.
- No, we will speak of it. I didn't call you here. I never prayed to anyone. You came to me on your own. Or did you merely wish to amuse yourself?
It's hard to be a god, thought Rumata. He said patiently:
- You won't understand. I've tried twenty times to explain to you that I am not a god; still you don't believe me. And you will not understand why I can't help you with weapons...
- You have lightning bolts?
- I can't give you lightning.
- I have heard this twenty times already, - said Arata. - Now I want to know: why?
- I say again: you won't understand.
- Try.
- What will you do with lightning bolts?
- I will incinerate the gilded scum, like bugs, every one of them, their entire cursed bloodlines to the twelfth scion. I will wipe their castles from the face of the earth. I will burn their armies and all those who defend and support them. You need not worry - your lightning bolts will serve only good, and when there remain on earth only liberated slaves and peace reigns, I will return your lightning to you and will never ask for it again.
Arata fell silent, breathing heavily. His face had darkened from a rush of blood. Likely he was already seeing the duchies and kingdoms in flames, and piles of scorched bodies among the ruins, and huge armies of the victors, feverishly howling: "Freedom! Freedom!"
- No, - said Rumata. - I will not give you lightning. That would be a mistake. Try to believe me, I see further than you do... (Arata listened, his head dropped to his chest.) - Rumata clenched his fingers. - I will give you only one argument. It is nothing compared to the main one, but at least you will understand it. You are a survivor, dear Arata, but you are also mortal; and if you perish, if the lightning bolts pass into other hands, ones not so clean as yours, then I fear even to think how it may end...
...
Arata fell silent and again reached for the bread. Rumata looked at the other's fingers, devoid of nails. His fingernails had been torn out, with a special device for that purpose, two years ago, by Don Reba personally. You don't yet know, thought Rumata. You still console yourself with the thought that only you yourself are destined for defeat. You don't yet know how hopeless are your efforts. You don't yet know that the enemy is not so much around your soldiers, as within them. You might, perhaps, topple the Order, and a wave of peasant revolts will carry you onto the throne of Arkanar; you will raze the nobles' castles, drown the barons in the Strait, and the rebellious people will grant you every honor as a great liberator, and you will be kind and wise - the only kind and wise person in your kingdom. And in your kindness you will start giving out lands to your comrades, and what use are lands to them without serfs? And the wheel will begin to turn the other way. And it will be a good thing if you manage to die in your own time, and do not live to see the rise of new dukes and barons from the ranks of your former loyal fighters. So it has already happened, my dear Arata, on Earth and on your own planet.

Comment author: dspeyer 04 December 2013 07:10:23PM 2 points [-]

Especially since he had mixed feelings on the subject, anyway. On the one hand, he thought the Polish situation did not lend itself well to military solutions. On the other hand . . .

Who could say for sure? The old saying "you can't export a revolution with bayonets" certainly had some truth. But a lot of it was just wishful thinking, too. Mike had read a great deal of history since the Ring of Fire, and one of the things he couldn't help notice was how often history was shaped by the outcome of wars. Napoleon was often denounced as a tyrant, but the fact remained that many of the revolutionary changes he made were not overturned after his defeat—not even by those he'd defeated and forced to accept those changes.

So . . . There was no way of knowing the outcome of a war between the USE and Poland. If was possible, in the event of a clearcut USE victory, that serfdom in eastern Europe would be destroyed. Not by Gustav Adolf and his armies, maybe. But one thing you could be sure of was that Gretchen Richter and her Committees of Correspondence would be coming into Poland on the heels of those armies. And they hated serfdom with a passion.

--1635 The Eastern Front

Even if all Rumata has are a few history books and overwhelming weaponery, he should be able to make some solid improvements in the social organization. And if he has the full backing of a spacefaring civilization, he should be able to do a lot.

I haven't read Hard to be a God (it does sound interesting), but my proposal:

  • First enough productive giveaways that there's a surplus worth speaking of. It has to exist before the people can keep it.
  • Then establish and protect a communications network. One armored internet terminal per tavern, perhaps. Create forums the powerful can't sensor. Publish some history and organization textbooks so that people get used to the idea that better things are possible.
  • Declare some meta-laws, like due process, no ex-post-facto, public jury trials... Make them mild enough that rulers consider them acceptable. Enforce them ruthlessly.
  • Publish relevant science and technology books.
  • This should be enough to see the beginnings of a middle class. Place them under your protection.
  • Whenever there's a succession crisis (those are common) declare a republic in the region. Crush any attempt to end it violently using overwhelming force. At first, you'll need to do a lot of work teaching people how to have a republic and enforcing things, but you should be able to back off as they learn.

Basically plagiarize shamelessly from the nicer parts of history and keep your eyes open for how to use what you have.

Comment author: Lumifer 04 December 2013 07:34:25PM 2 points [-]

I haven't read Hard to be a God (it does sound interesting), but my proposal

I do recommend the book. It's not at all about sociotechnical difficulties of uplifting a medieval society...

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 05 December 2013 05:46:36AM -1 points [-]

Whenever there's a succession crisis (those are common) declare a republic in the region.

Proceed to become horrified by the actions of the demagogues voted into office.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 05 December 2013 04:22:19AM *  1 point [-]

As Lumifer alludes to, your proposals, while interesting, solve problems other than the ones faced by Rumata. Here's the key issue:

Rumata is not allowed to visibly interfere with the social structure of the society he is trying to "uplift". He can work only subtly, in the shadows, disguised as one of the locals, such that his actions are indistinguishable to even (most of) his local allies from the actions of a bored, eccentric aristocraft. He is not allowed to kill. One of his colleagues describes their work as "not even sowing, but only preparing the soil to be sowed"; slowly nudging the society's development in the right direction, without the local population suspecting a thing.

More details for the curious:

Hard to Be a God takes place in the Noon Universe, a fictional timeline of the future shared among many of the Strugatskys' novels. One of the core concepts in the Noon Universe is that of the "progressors", professional uplifters of sorts, who infiltrate less-advanced societies and work from within to steer them in the progressive, idealized-technocratic-communist direction (which is how Earth has developed, in this fictional world).

The events of Hard to Be a God happen early in that timeline, where the ideology behind progressorism has not yet fully developed; where humanity is still unsure whether we have the moral right to interfere in alien societies at all. Rumata and his colleagues sometimes refer to themselves as "historians"; nominally, they are there to study the alien society; their actions are tightly constrained by the rules that govern their profession. Rumata is one of the first who takes actions that push the limits of his mandate. (Exactly how far he ends up going, or not going, is a plot point.)

There is also this (Rumata's senior colleague, Don Kondor a.k.a. Aleksandr Vasilievich, lecturing Rumata on the problems with direct action):

"You must, after all, firmly understand that neither you, nor I, nor any of us, will ever see any truly visible fruits of our work. We are not physicists; we are historians. Our unit of time is not the second, it is the year, and our work is not even sowing, but only preparing the soil to be sowed. We sometimes get, coming from Earth... enthusiasts, devil take them... sprinters with low stamina..."

Rumata smiled crookedly and for no particular reason set about pulling up his boots. Sprinters. Yes, there had been sprinters.

Ten years ago Stefan Orlovsky, alias don Kapada, commander of a crossbow company of His Imperial Highness, during the public torture of eighteen Estorian witches ordered his soldiers to open fire on the executioners, slaughtered the imperial judge and two deputies, and was taken at spearpoint by the castle guards. As he died, writhing in agony, he screamed "You're human beings! Get them, get them!", but few heard him over the roar of the crowd: "Fire! More fire!.."

Approximately at the same time, in the opposite hemisphere, Karl Rosenblum, one of the greatest scholars of the peasant wars of Germany and France, also known as the the fur trader Pani-Pa, raised a rebellion of Murissite peasants, took two cities by storm and was killed by an arrow in the back of the neck while trying to put a stop to looting. He was still alive when they came for him by helicopter, but could not speak, and only had a guilty and perplexed look in his big blue eyes, from which continuously flowed tears...

And not long before Rumata's arrival, the incredibly well-disguised confidant of the Kaisanian tyrant (Jeremy Tafnat, a specialist in the history of land reforms) suddenly, out of nowhere, organized a palace coup, usurped the throne, for two months tried to start a Golden Age, stubbornly ignored the furious communiques of his neighbors and of Earth, gained fame as a madman, by good fortune avoided eight assassination attempts, was at last kidnapped by an emergency team of agents of the Institute and sent by submarine to the island base near the South Pole...

"And to think!" — muttered Rumata. — "All of Earth still thinks that the hardest problems are the domain of the null-physicists..."

Basically, the novel is rather pessimistic about human nature, and in particular the likelihood that inhabitants of medieval societies will respond to well-meaning liberators by embracing freedom, equality, and brotherhood. (Finding examples from the real world to support, or oppose, such pessismism are left as an exercise for the reader.)

Comment author: Bugmaster 06 December 2013 12:50:45AM 1 point [-]

As I said in the comment above, I highly recommend reading the sequel ("Beetle in an anthill", or something like that in English), in order to understand what uplift might look like from the other end. It's not all roses.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 21 December 2013 03:46:37PM 1 point [-]

Not being uplifted isn't exactly roses either.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 06 December 2013 05:25:54AM 1 point [-]

I don't know that I'd call Beetle in the Anthill a sequel to Hard to Be a God, per se (except insofar as they both take place in the Noon Universe), but yes, I agree with the recommendation. The sequel to Beetle, which I believe is called Time Wanderers in English (Waves Silence the Wind in Russian), illustrates this even more starkly.

Comment author: shminux 05 December 2013 07:09:43PM *  -1 points [-]

the novel is rather pessimistic about human nature

Seems rather realistic to me, actually. Do you know of many examples where "well-meaning liberators" did not end up causing more suffering shortly after their intervention (or forced withdrawal)?

Comment author: Izeinwinter 27 December 2013 12:14:51PM 1 point [-]

There are some, but mostly they are cases of "local situation deteriorated to the point of piles of skulls" prior to the intervention, so foreigners stomping around were welcomed instead of shot at.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 05 December 2013 07:19:02PM 1 point [-]

Does technological development count as well-meaning intervention?

Comment author: shminux 05 December 2013 10:29:44PM -1 points [-]

I am not sure what you mean here. Is it introducing new technologies as a part of a conquest, like the British did in India?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 05 December 2013 11:23:42PM 1 point [-]

No, I just mean developing new technologies. That is, at time T this community doesn't have the technology, then someone intervenes, and at time T+1 the community does have the technology.

If that's out of scope for the kind of interventions you're asking about, that's fine, but if it isn't, then I suspect there are plenty of examples where well-meaning folk end up not causing more suffering after their intervention in a community.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 05 December 2013 11:14:50PM 0 points [-]

I agree, shminux. By "pessimistic" I didn't mean to imply "unrealistically pessimistic". The Strugatskys' views were well-informed by both history and contemporary events (Russian/Soviet policies in the Caucasus and Central Asia, to name one example relevant to this case).

Comment author: Desrtopa 05 December 2013 07:29:49PM *  0 points [-]

I believe that Yvain cited an example of such on his blog, but I think that it was on the older one whose contents have been recently deleted. It was a recent one, and the "liberators" were the French, but I don't recall enough relevant info to google it.

Comment author: Vaniver 05 December 2013 09:25:37PM 0 points [-]

He did recently mention the British conquest of Afghanistan vs. the American conquest of Afghanistan, but that was mostly the question of how quickly and successfully the country was pacified, not liberated.

Comment author: Desrtopa 05 December 2013 09:27:33PM 0 points [-]

This was definitely a different example than that, and drew on more recent history than the British conquest of Afghanistan.

Comment author: shminux 04 December 2013 08:22:01PM *  -1 points [-]

This plan is full of good intentions... Try conducting a premortem on each one.

Comment author: Bugmaster 06 December 2013 12:45:30AM *  2 points [-]

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS below !

I should point out that, in this novel, humans from the distant future are attempting to uplift the culture of a relatively backward planet to somewhere closer to their own level. The locals do not really understand what is happening, but they know that some power beyound their understanding is messing with their world, and they try to exploit or resist it as best they can.

The novel has a sequel. In it, one of the uplift agents returns to Earth, only to find out that there may be someone or something out there, which is beyound human understanding, acting upon the humans in order to further some inscrutable goal. In secret, the humans mount a desperate attempt to resist this influence, by any means necessary, as best they can...

The sequel is followed by the final book of the trilogy. Whether what happens in it is wonderful or catastrophic depends on how you interpret the previous two books, I think, but it's at least a little sad all the same.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 06 December 2013 05:46:14AM 4 points [-]

Your comment makes me wonder whether you are perhaps confusing Hard to Be a God with Inhabited Island (called Prisoners of Power in English, I believe).

Comment author: Bugmaster 06 December 2013 06:51:45AM 1 point [-]

Oh crap, you're right ! Good catch.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 December 2013 04:44:44PM 2 points [-]

You both need to go read the Fun Theory sequence.

Bloody small-minded humans, always mucking things up with their incrementalism and obsessive compulsions towards toil.

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