Comment by INTPenis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by INTPenis | Hacker News Reader

This was very well written, very insightful and humble. Considering he's usually an asshole to people IRL. But I guess he just comes off that way when he wants to convey his truth to people. Not completely foreign to myself, having discovered that I'm actually autistic in my late 30s. That explained a lot.

Anyways, this overview effect is something I always felt, even without going into space. I always felt we were wasting time with our squabbling over borders down here. I think most scifi geeks feel this way, and I don't mean star trek scifi, I mean Alastair Reynolds, Ian Banks and such.

But the problem is that the solution my mind always reaches for requires autocracy to fix the problems. So in a sense our problems are caused by our desire to be free.

Honestly I don't think most of us are more than trained apes, do we deserve to be free and pollute our earth? I don't want autocracy but I definitely want a lot stronger government to regulate our problems away. Globally.

I used to be in favor of a world government. But then I realized it could quite easily turn into an authoritarian system at some point, which due to the global scope would then be rather difficult to get out of.

Government always turns into an authoritarian system when it is around long enough, and all major world governments are working toward a single Earth government. They will probably achieve it in the next 500 years if the trend of governmental consolidation continues as it has for the last thousand.

Maybe Mars is a good idea after all.

In all seriousness that's one of the best arguments to colonize Mars IMO.

Humanity needs to constantly run away from itself.

I think this is a similar scenario that emerges in many aspects of life, and in nearly every aspect of life. It's also formalized in game theory.

In game theory there are exploitative solutions that focus on achieving the most optimal best case scenario (you picked rock 100 times in a row, I'm going to pick paper), and game theory optimal solutions that focus on achieving the least awful worst case scenario (you picked rock 100 times in a row, but I'm still going to pick my choice randomly because otherwise you could predict I'm going to pick paper, suddenly swap to scissors, and exploit me). When things are going optimally, the exploitative solution will dramatically outperform the optimal. But when things are going poorly, the optimal will even more dramatically outperform the exploitative.

So do you pick the scenario that will never do especially well but will also never do especially poorly? Or do you pick the one that can have extremes of achievement, but also extremes of failure? I suspect framed this way, few would ever pick the latter. But we humans have this annoying ability to convince ourselves of things like the failure scenario being impossible - even though history has endlessly repeated that not only is it possible, but it will happen, and generally far more quickly than one could ever imagine.

I used to like chocolate croissants then I realize plain ones really capture the essence of what I’m looking for

in a sense our problems are caused by our desire to be free

this is an important point. and the next step is the realization that, therefore, the only way to make the world better is through education, and motivating people to strive to be better themselves, to think about our future, to contribute to the advancement of society.

>> my mind always reaches for requires autocracy to fix the problems

Maybe try reaching for something else (such as technological solutions). We are currently on the brink of armageddon due to an autocratic regime. Centralization IRL necessarily leads to corruption over time. It's efficient but not robust.

It's a mistake to think technology just solves those problems. After all, it's only because of technology that a single autocratic regime can threaten everyone else with armageddon.

We absolute don't want a world government if its going to be the same ineffective and often harmful paradigm as one of the existing governments.

However, we also need to significantly revise the way that government and money work. They need to become high technologies. More than that, we need those technologies to be built around more encompassing and well-rounded ideologies.

These are huge challenges. But the alternative to working on them is to just accept the status quo.

> ...this overview effect is something I always felt, even without going into space.

Very interesting. Have you met anyone else IRL who shares the overview effect?

> ...autocracy to fix the problems.

Tchaikovsky's novel Children of Time explores how two different cultures try to tackle this problem. I won't spoil it for you. It's a notion I keep chewing on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)

When you fly transatlantically sometimes you can see the curvature of the earth.

Interesting. Do many people experience transcendence as a result?

Not on a standard transatlantic flight. You are likely seeing the optical effect of the window on the horizon. Observing curvature of the earth at even 60,000 feet requires a very wide-angle view (the cabin), with a clear view of the sky. The earth is huge. https://simpleflying.com/concorde-earth-curvature/

Has anyone tried to replicate this in VR?

Kerbal Space Program provided glimpses of this for me. Leaving the home planet and getting into orbit after hours of trial and error, then eventually heading towards the Mun and then other planets was a sort of virtual Overview Effect. I didn't have any attachment to the home planet (and the idea of much of the game is to leave in the first place) but leaving and then looking around while enjoying the first moment in orbit/arriving at a new planet was a big 'Woah!' in my gaming life.

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