Do you have a link you recommend for Hanson’s space colonization economics?

This is simply an incredible post. It convincingly concludes part 1 of the discussion you held with Vladimir back in 03/13:

“If you [Vladimir] are right on this, it means that the final discussion has to take place between ‘Mannian’ reaction (as Spandrell tags it) and the post-economistic left, based on the understanding that the political is the supremely dominant social instance, and economics has to fall into line with it. My intuitions, as you know, are quite different, primarily because I think economic systems incarnate intelligence at a far higher level than any political order can match. I realize, however, that this case remains to be convincingly made.” http://www.xenosystems.net/coming-attractions/

Now that the case has been – convincingly – made, it would be fantastic if Vladimir were to resume his critique, either in public or via email, before you move on to part 2 of your essay…

The idea of infinitely cascading polities, or whatever, is trivial because it wishes away the problem that power is misused. The final cascade produces: the individual!

The idea that arbitrary ways of life could be tried out in competing polities is a non-starter, and for good reason. At the same time, I think there is a meaningful difference between reasoning on a “meta” level and having a fixed vision of society. E.g., free market exchange is a known good system on the meta level; the outcomes are only somewhat predictable and manipulable, but expected to be generally desirable in comparison to total central planning. A successful “meta-neocameral” state could be thought of similarly.

I don’t see why elements of competition, or Exit would have to be portrayed as “secession”; secession sounds to me like almost all legislative, judicial and executive power of any kind would be local. It could be anti-fragility, competition, decentralisation etc. Google government. Now of course, almost any political change has complicated memetic consequences; perhaps the best solution is for no-one ever to be creative. This leads to the problem that you simply can’t keep on administering equality in an entirely safe and boring way forever, whether or not that’s a good idea in some abstract sense.

Seems to me the universe by default is dark and full of cosmic horrors, and the only brightness is human agency. A future shaped by anything other that carefully thought-out human agency is neutral (in a lovecraftian sense) at best. This is vanity of course, but anything else is nihilism.

If MNC boils down to “stop complaining and surrender to GNON”, count me out. I don’t trust God.

Have you read Robin Hanson’s work on space colonization economics? Add transhumanism and all the incentives become to cast off the pesky human values and go full-bore on replication and imperialism.

I know Nick Land and the other Gnon worshippers would disagree, but uncontrolled space colonization is likely to be a failure mode future, not a good one.