Today’s episode with the always-interesting Benjamin Stringer is part one of a discussion. Part two will be available on his Substack, Axiom's First.
This conversation is an experiment in thought and discussion. I have been building a model that explains the mechanics of moral-political progress, and recently reached a point in my thinking where I felt I had sufficiently clarified the key concepts in my own mind and would benefit from a discussion about them in my attempt to integrate them.
The following are the concepts we discuss in the podcast:
Incentives
“People are as moral as incentives will allow.”
Virtue-Competition Trap
A moral Pareto Efficiency wherein people must trade off between values.
Innovation
Technological, economic and moral developments which allow for the expansion of the Virtue-Competition frontier, permitting more moral behaviour.
Iteration
Iterated interaction between agents is what incentivises moral behaviour.
Negotiation
Negotiation regulates iterated behaviour.
Neither my framework nor these concepts is fully developed. I thought it would be interesting to play with these ideas in public, and I encourage you to comment if you have any comments or criticisms to add to our conversation.
Part two of the discussion can be found here:
