7 - competencefiles.meetup.com/10273962/10.16.2016 jake s societal competence… · 16/10/2016 ·...

Societal Competence

The Freethinking CommunityOctober 16, 2016

Jacob Scheiber

Overview

1) What might we mean by “competence”

2) Historical examples

3) Task properties affecting competence

4) Current and future outlook

Competence vs Capability

● Say that society has to accomplish some difficult task “X”

– Capability: The resources and technical means to accomplish task X

– Competence: The ability to actually deploy these resources to accomplish the task

● Capability problem: If the task is actually too difficult for the society to accomplish

● Competence problem: If the society has the capability to accomplish the task, yet doesn't

(1) What might we mean by “competence”


● We could have the capability to deal with some problems but not others

– Small asteroid strikes we may be able to deflect

● We are currently tracking 1,651 “Potentially Hazardous Objects” that are >100m in diameter and come within 7.5M km of Earth's orbit

● NASA is preparing a small asteroid gravity tractor deflection mission for about 2020

– But sufficiently large ones we can't do anything about

– Also, NEOWISE estimates that 70-80% of PHO's haven't been found



● If we lack the capability to solve a problem, competence is irrelevant

● But, there seem to be some problems we have capability but not competence to deal with

– Scientists have called for many years to decrease carbon emissions, but carbon emissions have increased over this time

– We agree that the financial sector shouldn't be able to externalize its risks on others, but it does anyway

– We generally agree we would be safer with smaller nuclear arsenal sizes, but the US and Russia each have about 7,000 warheads


Capability increases over time

● Over time our capabilities generally increase

– Population increases

– Resource wealth increases

– Technical capability increases

● We can fix problems past societies could not have fixed

– Ancient Rome was fairly competent, but had no capability to deal with even a small asteroid strike

– Bubonic plague killed about 1/3 of all humans in the 14th century (75-200M people), but can now be treated with antibiotics


Competence direction unclear

● Some things we seem to be getting more competent at:

– International agreement on transportation standards, units of measurement, borders, communication protocols etc.

– Significant worldwide poverty and violent crime reduction

● But some things we may be getting less competent at:

– Recent level of political discourse

– Long-term infrastructure spending

– Control over actions of corporations and governments

– Control over development of potentially dangerous technologies


Thought experiment: Super-Dictator

● Imagine two societies, A and B, which have identical capabilities but are organized differently

– Society A is organized like ours, with citizens, governments, elections, corporations, a legal structure, etc

– Society B has a magical “Super-Dictator” who can directly control what all the people, corporations, and governments do.

● Now, each society is faced with a large problem “X”

– If neither society can solve it, it's a capability problem

– If B could solve the problem but not A, it's a competence problem


What can the Super-Dictator do that we can't?

● Take more direct steps to mitigate climate change

– Decree: Everyone has to be a vegetarian and drive a smaller car

● Solve the obesity epidemic

– Decree: Everyone has to eat less

● End violent crimes, and even white collar crimes

– Decree: Everyone stop doing the crimes

● Note: This is all very unrealistic. Calm down, it's a thought experiment


Possible issues with framework

● We are presupposing that society agrees that “task X” should be done

– Legalizing or banning abortion isn't a “competence” issue in this framework because people disagree about what to do

– People disagree about global warming also, but we can call this a competence problem because we all agree we want the Earth to not be destroyed

● The “Super-Dictator” may be solving problem X by creating other problems

– We could take extreme actions to prevent carbon emissions, but these could shrink GDP, reduce trade, eliminate jobs, etc.

– We could “solve” obesity, but only in a way that limits free choice, which is another thing we also value


Possible issues with framework

● You might argue that “competence” can be collapsed into “capability”

– Social organization itself can be seen as a technology

– Coordination problems are legitimately hard

● We are saying we have the “capability” to limit carbon emissions, but we may lack an economic or legal framework for actually doing so

● There is no hard line between “capability” and “competence” here

– Really a free will thing, I'm saying we “could have” deployed our capabilities better

– Still maybe useful to talk about though. Competence problems are the ones we “should” be able to solve with the tools we have

● Another perspective: Competence problems are just the ones we look stupid for not solving


Case study: Y2K

● In many early computer programs the date was represented with a “YY” format, with the understanding that “97” meant “1997”.

– Thus, “01/01/00” would be parsed as January 1st 1900, rather than 2000.

– Computer errors from this were predicted to cause widespread infrastructure disruption and harm

● The US passed the “Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act” and created the “President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion”

– The government worked with the private sector to anticipate and fix errors

– On the whole, over $300 billion was spent in mitigation efforts

– On the 1/1/2000, very few serious errors occurred

(2) Historical examples

Case study: Y2K

● Some claim that there wouldn't have been serious problems either way

– If true, the money spent was largely wasted

● However, we don't know the scope of what problems would have otherwise happened

● Either way, I'm calling this a good example of societal competence.

– Under worst interpretation, we overprepared for a disaster


Future Y2K's?

● Year 2038 problem

– Most UNIX systems store the time as the number of seconds that have elapsed since midnight January 1st 1970

– This will overrun its 32-bit signed integer buffer on January 19th 2038

– Currently “no universal solution” to this problem

● IPv6 implementation

– Current internet uses IPv4 protocol, limited to 2^32 IP addresses (4 billion), which have run out

– IPv6 written in 1998 to solve this, but still not widely implemented

● Getting the US to the metric system

– Originally approved by congress in 1866

– Still hasn't really happened


Future Y2K's?

● Installed infrastructure problem

– The longer we wait to solve these problems, the more installed infrastructure needs to be changed

– We switched to IPv4 by telling everyone on ARPANET to install some software on a particular day. Probably can't do this now

– When other countries switched to metric it was difficult for the US because we had so much installed infrastructure already

● This gets worse every year

– Year 2038 problem may be worse than year 2000 problem

● Could be both harder to fix and more damaging


Case study: Hurricane Katrina

● Katrina made landfall in the Southern US in August 2005

● Killed >1200 people, caused >$100 billion in damage

– Most of the deaths were due to levee failures and subsequent flooding in New Orleans

● There was widespread criticism of government handling of the crisis

– Evacuation orders were delayed until it was too late to get people out of the city

– People were evacuated to shelters with no food or water

– Congressional investigation found that FEMA and the Red Cross “did not have a logistics capacity sophisticated enough to fully support the massive number of Gulf coast victims”.



● Could we have known this would happen?

– “A slow moving Category 3 hurricane or larger will flood the city. There will be between 17 and 20 feet of standing water, and New Orleans as we now know it will no longer exist.” - Ivor van Heerden, 2004



● Could we have known this would happen?

– In July 2004 we conducted the “Hurricane Pam” exercise

● Federal and state agencies simulated what would happen if a large hurricane flooded New Orleans

● “At the Hurricane Pam exercise we had a number of officials who basically scoffed at us when we were talking about the potential of levees going and the very real threat to New Orleans of a major hurricane. I think they just believed it wouldn't happen.”-van Heerden

● Essentially, we knew what would happen but didn't prepare for it very well anyway


Future Katrina's?

● Seattle Earthquake problem

– Pacific Northwest gets one very large earthquake every ~300 years

● We are now overdue for the next one

● FEMA estimates this would cause ~15,000 casualties

● Most residents of the area not aware or not worried about this


Why are we better at preparing for some things than others?

● Magnitude: We can say as short-hand that the magnitude of a problem is how much it would cost to prepare for or fix it

– Obviously we are more likely to fix small magnitude problems

– But, even with equal magnitude, some problems seem harder for us to fix than others

– We can posit several properties of tasks or problems that make them harder for us to deal with irrespective of magnitude

(3) Properties affecting competence

Comprehensibility/Imaginability

● Comprehensibility: How easy is the problem to understand?

– Y2K problem comparatively easy to explain

– Externalized risk from subprime mortgage lending more difficult

● Financial derivatives probably purposefully complex for this reason

● Imaginability: How easy is the problem to imagine?

– Terrorist attacks very easy to imagine, and we spend a lot of money preparing for them

– Natural disasters, infrastructure failure, and climate change are all sort of hard to imagine

● Even when people rationally know these are possible, they still don't really believe it


Certainty/Uncertainty

● We're much more likely to work on a problem we know is certain

– We know for sure what exact second the year 2038 problem will happen on

– We know for sure that a big earthquake will hit Seattle “eventually”

● Should we panic about this today? Well, why today in particular?

● If we spend money fixing uncertain problems, it looks to outside observers we are wasting money

– Say scientists calculate that the LHC has a 1% chance to destroy the universe, but they can prevent that by spending an additional $1B on it

– Later, when the universe isn't destroyed, people will say they wasted a billion dollars


Disjunctive/Conjunctive problems

● Some problems are disjunctive: One person or a small group could solve the problem for everybody

– Smallpox vaccine was invented by Edward Jenner and could be distributed to everybody

● Other problems are conjunctive: Everyone has to do something (or not do something) to solve the problem

– To prevent global warming we need all parties to limit carbon emissions

– Nuclear disarmament would require all states to disarm

● Not good enough if almost everybody disarms their weapons

● Disjunctive problems are much easier to solve


Normalcy / discontinuity

● Novel problems get more attention than ongoing ones

– New diseases like West Nile Virus and Swine Flu get a lot of attention

– Meanwhile, regular flu kills between 3,000 and 49,000 people per year (US)

● Problems which will happen all at once get more attention than ongoing ones

– If climate change was likely to happen all at once on a particular day in 2027, we might be doing more about it

– If Y2K would have caused a few computers to fail at random every day for 10 years, we might have done less


Ethical disagreement

● It's mostly agreed that obesity is a medical epidemic in the US, but certain types of interventions prove very controversial


– An NYC law to prevent sales of soda larger than 16 ounces drew widespread criticism, and was ultimately struck down by the NY court of appeals

● Many people believe human overpopulation is a problem

– But, there is no easy remedy which does not involve murder or infringing on reproductive rights

● These are problems that we cannot solve without restricting individual liberty

A problem we could face competently: Apophis

● In 2004 we discovered an 325-meter asteroid we named 99942 Apophis, which was considered to be somewhat likely to impact Earth in 2029 or 2035

● Impact energy estimated at 750 megatons, more than 10x greater than the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated

– Later measurements show it will not impact the Earth

– But, if it was on a collision course, how well would we cope?

(4) Current / future outlook

A problem we could face competently: Apophis

● Properties of asteroid-strike problem

– Certain: We can tell with high certainty the trajectories of orbiting bodies. We would know the exact date and time of impact, maybe even the location

– Comprehensible: It is very simple to explain to everyone what the problem is, and we can show them all those disaster movies we made about this exact scenario

– Discontinuous: It is a scary sudden problem that will happen all at once

– Disjunctive: If 10 countries create a deflection mission and only 1 succeeds, that will still be enough to save us

– Ethically clear: Everyone will agree about what to do

● If we fail to avert this kind of crisis, it will essentially be a capability problem, not a competence one


Problems we might not face competently

● Mitigating climate change

– Moderately uncertain: We don't know with high precision exactly what will happen or exactly when. Some people still deny climate change is even real

– Difficult to imagine: Even people who believe climate change is real have a difficult time imagining large scale changes to the Earth

– Continuous: Will happen slowly over a long period of time

– Conjunctive: Requires cooperation of most or all people to prevent

– Ethically difficult: If restricting carbon emissions interferes with the economy, jobs, peoples' freedom of movement, there will be controversy about how restrictions are implemented



● Dangerous novel technologies

– Many academics who study existential risks think that the biggest threats aren't asteroids and hurricanes, but technologies we will develop

– Bostrom's thought experiment: What if we invented something as destructive as nuclear bombs that was as cheap as hand grenades?

● Also, we've never been able to “uninvent” anything

● So: We may face the problem of preventing such a discovery in the first place

– Candidates:

● Artificial Intelligence

● Dangerous nanotechnology

● Advanced biological weapons



● Properties: Preventing creation of dangerous novel technologies

– Quite uncertain: These technologies don't exist yet and some may not even be possible. We have no idea when they may be created

– Difficult to imagine: No matter how many Terminator or Matrix movies we make, no one really thinks anything like that could happen

– Continuous: Research progress is ongoing and incremental. There won't be a particular day when we wake up and realize genetic engineering has gone too far

– Conjunctive: Requires all parties to cooperate. It doesn't help if almost everyone doesn't create hyper-smallpox

– Ethically difficult: All of these dangerous technologies will also have legitimate uses. Justifying research restriction will be difficult


Normative inertia: A particular culprit

● People take their cues for how to react to things from their peer group

– If it seems like no one is panicking about something, you won't panic either

– How do you decide whether or not to evacuate for a hurricane?

● Even people who know about these problems may fail to act on them

– Your emotional response to a situation is usually based on prior experience

● People who experience terrorism firsthand have a much different relationship to the concept than people who read statistics about it

– No one has prior experience of climate change, AI, or many other new problems we face.


Concluding thoughts

● Normal moral signaling would be just being “outraged” that we can't solve competence problems like climate change, disaster preparedness, inequality, etc.

● We probably need a more reasoned approach

– Why are some coordination problems harder than others?

– What can we do to make the hard ones easier?

● I have no idea by the way. I'm just creating a framework for why certain types of problems are difficult

● I've focused on “catastrophe prevention”, but many other things could fall under competence/incompetence

(5) Conclusion

References

● https://www.nasa.gov/content/what-is-nasa-s-asteroid-redirect-mission

● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentially_hazardous_object

● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

● http://www.icanw.org/the-facts/nuclear-arsenals/

● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague#Second_outbreak

● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem#Cost

● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_system

● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina

● http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/predicting-katrina.html

● http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/07/kathryn_schulz_s_new_yorker_story_on_pacific_northwest_earthquake_g

eologists.html

● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_Drinks_Portion_Cap_Rule

● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

7 - competencefiles.meetup.com/10273962/10.16.2016 jake s societal competence… · 16/10/2016 ·...

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