I love this insight, and it generalizes. Just swapping out humans with AIs won't just fix everything, because many of the biggest problems are structural or emergent.
I'm hopeful that we can use AI models to pressure test better options of social organization etc.
Democracy had enemies before the founding of the Republic. Our founders warned us that it would require constant maintenance: "a republic, if you can keep it," warned Franklin.
Washington cautioned us that political parties would allow unprincipled men to subvert the power of the people.
Jefferson highlighted the criticality of public education: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
For Adams, it was the willingness of citizens to sacrifice their private interests for the sake of the community. He cautioned against purely self-interested rugged individualism, now a fake American ideal.
All of these have eroded from a combination of assault and neglect. This problem is asymmetric: those who assault democracy have more to gain than those who defend it (e.g. by looting it, or getting compensated by a foreign power, etc.)
In 1971, 2 months after Lewis Powell argued businesses use their political power to aggressively influence the law, Regan brought him on as a Supreme Court Justice. It was much more efficient to buy a justice for life. He helped set the stage for First Amendment protection of corporate speech, and Citizens United; ultimately legalizing the ability to secretly give a political candidate money.
It is biased - interestingly less than expected on this topic because Iran is shelling them - but the idea is to read something to counteract Western bias. Asian outlets (non-Japanese) are another good source.
Abortion used to be a Catholic issue until a Republican strategist saw an opportunity.
The point is to get citizens fighting each other on things that are personally important so we're too busy to fight for things that are nationally important, like corruption or the decay of democracy.
Both parties suck because the system is broken, and both parties benefit from perpetuating it -- along with those who fund them.
>Despite their self-image, I don't think liberals are actually any better at empathy than anyone else.
I can see how you think this, since othering and dehumanizing responses rise to the top when people ask how Republicans can support this administration.
>Xwedodah (Persian: خویدوده xidude; Avestan: xᵛaētuuadaθa) is a type of consanguine marriage historically practiced in Zoroastrianism before the Muslim conquest of Persia.[1] Such marriages are recorded as having been inspired by Zoroastrian cosmogony and considered pious. It was a high act of worship in Zoroastrianism, and there were punishments for not performing it.[2][3]
>This form of direct familial incest marriage allowed Zoroastrians to marry their sisters, daughters, granddaughters, and their own mothers to take as wives.[4] Xwedodah was widely practiced by royalty and nobility, and possibly clergy, but it is not known if it was commonly practiced by families in other classes.[5] In modern Zoroastrianism it is near non-existent, having been noted to have disappeared as an extant practice by the 11th century.[5]
I'd recommend something like Breakfast with Seneca. It's an awesome read, and should hopefully help to differentiate the philosophy or school of stoicism and whatever we have now.
We're still human, and the collaborative problem solving the ancients did still applies today. That much of the concepts survived and maintained relevance from ancient Greece, to Rome, to now lends them a certain 'time tested' quality.
I'm hopeful that we can use AI models to pressure test better options of social organization etc.