Comment by rayiner
7 days ago
I’m not saying it’s literally a tree. My point is that we need vastly more power to upgrade to the next level of civilization.
7 days ago
I’m not saying it’s literally a tree. My point is that we need vastly more power to upgrade to the next level of civilization.
Right but “upgrading to the next level” is exactly the type of cognitive error that I’m against, it’s forward-looking Whig history. There is no “levels” of civilization, there’s only the arrangements we have now and the ones that will occur in the future. Maybe those arrangements will have different pros and cons than we have now, maybe they’ll have more sophisticated engineering practices, but there’s no objective “development score” that is being maximized it’s just more humanity.
It's an abstraction, not an error. Naturally you might or might not agree with any individual's underlying metrics, and them with yours.
> It's an abstraction, not an error.
Extending an abstraction beyond its expressive capabilities is an error IMO.
How do you know nuclear is even on the "tech tree", rather than being a blind alley? Isn't this argument just assuming what you're trying to show?