The Societies We Want

I happened to be reading the latest Carnival of the Godless this morning, which contained, among other things, the usual discussions about the rational bases (or lack thereof) of morality.

This actually impacts life extension. First of all, whatever society we build we are going to have to live in for a very long time (assuming success). Secondly, one of the common objections I hear to extreme life extension goes along the lines of "do you really want to do all this longer than you have to"?

I'm of the general opinion that the evolution of society will happen without conscious direction, much like the evolution of the internet. I'm also of the hopeful opinion that, as societies grow more and more rational (a long term side effect of globalization, exposure to other ways of thinking, and continued scientific growth) then this unconscious evolution will be more and more driven by what works, rather than by bronze age ideals or strange ideologies.

You'd think history would eventually teach us something after all...

As to an actual rational basis for morality, mine (surely not original and definitely influenced by the Social Contract Theory of John Locke - but don't mistake me for a philosopher) goes like this. This is not rigorous, its more of an overview:

One of the core arguments about morality is how to define what is good, if a definition is not imposed from outside. Well, lets start with, what is good to the average person? Things that make you happy and fulfilled. Family, loved ones, liberty, successful careers, bunnies, chocolate...

In fact, the American definition is pretty succinct: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

So now, to expand this a little, what is in your short term self interest for a society that will allow you to develop your life along lines that are good to you?

You'll want a stable society, since stable societies are capable of producing so many things that can be used to add to your happiness (rather than forcing you to spend most of your time worried about basic survival). Societies strong enough to protect your interests, with a decent justice system so other people can't interfere unfairly with your goals. Societies big enough and stable enough to allow production of the fine things in life: books, movies, art, fine medical establishments, plentiful food, sports, things like that.

What values do people need to develop in themselves to maximize the potential to build such happy societies, which is in all of their best interests? Things like this:

* trust: this is a big one. Can't have a wealthy society if you don't have enough trust to enable commerce. Who wants to spend all their time looking over their shoulder?

* patience: not as big but lets face it, we're all imperfect humans. If we all have a bit of patience with each other life is so much more pleasant. Or we can waste all our time being jerks...

* punishment of cheaters: got to keep people attempting to maximize their own happiness at other's expense down, or the whole trust thing falls apart.

So there are a certain set of values that are logically in your self interest (happily, evolution has already seen this and has built in mechanisms making a large majority of us prefer to act in these ways, at least on average). They promote your own immediate good. I don't think they need a justification beyond that. Stable productive societies maximize our happiness (Even for recluses, who may not prefer to deal with people, but likely enjoy the products of people. Arguably, even for sociopaths).

Now, to go a little further, what is in your long term best interest? You will want to ensure the survival of your society, and you will want to ensure you do not get into a bad position from which you cannot extricate yourself. What values/behaviours does your society need to have to promote this?:

* Some sort of a social safety net, to ensure that you can still survive to pull yourself out of a fall, even if it requires a great deal of effort.

* The society has to be built in such a way that poverty is not intractable. This is going to mean education (eg. for retraining yourself) needs to be attainable for everyone, as does medical care for problems that prevent you from supporting yourself. In addition to being long term self protective, you don't want people on the poorer side of your society having no better option than to take your things to advance themselves...

But there's more. Life is not fair. People outside your nice society can harm you. In fact, if they do not share in its benefits, there really is no reason for them not to harm you. You are not part of their society, your condition does not affect their happiness, and they clearly have much less happiness than you. So you not only want a stable society, you want a stable world. What does this imply? Things like this:

* Never take an approach to trade that maximizes your own country's good unfairly. It may come back to bite you.

* Smart, targeted foreign aid for societies in intractable poverty traps who can be helped. Not only are such societies going to get more and more dangerous to you with improved technology allowing more damage from fewer people... but they are breeding grounds for dangerous diseases and ideologies.

* Recognize other people's rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You never know when your own society might hit rock bottom, and you sure don't want other people deciding its easier to nuke you so you won't be a disease reservoir. Its best to establish such things are bad right out, even when they may appear to be in your short term interest.

All things we wrestle with all the time right now. The roots of morality really aren't that confusing. Most of us seem to almost instinctively know what is needed. Now if we can just get rid of all those irrational ideologies so we can think collectively more clearly about the issues.

One of the consequences of the above is life extensionists have more of a need to behave morally, since they are more likely to see the consequences of their own actions (something many life extensionists have pointed out already). They also have to live longer with the societies they build, and due to the chaotic nature of life are more likely to have to experience the downsides of their own societies at some point.

I take exception to philosophies that seem to abandon the collective good of society for extreme individualism (eg. extreme libertarianism). Yes, the fact that your neighbor can't afford to educate their children does affect you, directly (especially if they vote). No, you shouldn't necessarily have a choice about everything a society pays for, as that opens the door to getting a free ride by having other people pay for something that is clearly in your long term interest. Its a balance we have to learn from experience.

Superintelligent robots ruling us all may bypass us having to solve all these issues ourselves, you never know...