Long Legacies And Fights In An Uncaring Universe

What can one do today to have a big predictable influence on the long-term future? In this post I’ll use a simple decision framework, wherein there is no game or competition, one is just trying to influence a random uncaring universe. I’ll summarize some points I’ve made before. In my next post I’ll switch to a game framework, where there is more competition to influence the future.

Most random actions fail badly at this goal. That is, most parameters are tied to some sort of physical, biological, or social equilibrium, where if you move a parameter away from its current setting, the world tends to push it back. Yes there are exceptions, where a push might “tip” the world to a new rather different equilibrium, but in spaces where most points are far from tipping points, such situations are rare.

There is, however, one robust way to have a big influence on the distant future: speed up or slow down innovation and growth. The extreme version of this preventing or causing extinction; while quite hard to do, this has enormous impact. Setting that aside, as the world economy grows exponentially, any small change to its current level is magnified over time. For example, if one invents something new that lasts then that future world is more able to make more inventions faster, etc. This magnification grows into the future until the point in time when growth rates must slow down, such as when the solar system fills up, or when innovations in physical devices run out. By speeding up growth, you can prevent the waste all the negentropy that is and will continue to be destroyed until our descendants managed to wrest control of such processes.

Alas making roughly the same future happen sooner versus later doesn’t engage most people emotionally; they are much more interested in joining a “fight” over what character the future will take at any give size. One interesting way to take sides while still leveraging growth is to fund a long-lived organization that invests and saves its assets, and then later spends those assets to influence some side in a fight. The fact that investment rates of return have long exceeded growth rates suggests that one could achieve disproportionate influence in this way. Oddly, few seem to try this strategy.

Another way to leverage growth to influence future fights is via fertility: have more kids who themselves have more kids, etc. While this is clearly a time-tested strategy, we are in an era with a puzzling disinterest in fertility, even among those who claim to seek long-term influence.

Another way to join long-term fights is to add your weight to an agglomeration process whereby larger systems slowly gain over smaller ones. For example if the nations, cities, languages, and art genres with more participants tend to win over time, you can ally with one of these to help to tip the balance. Of course this influence only lasts as long as do these things. For example, if you push for short vs long hair in the current fashion change, that effect may only last until the next hair fashion cycle.

Pushing for the creation of a particular world government seems an extreme example of this agglomeration effect. A world government might last a very long time, and retain features from those who influenced its source and early structure.

One way to have more influence on fights is to influence systems that are plastic now but will become more rigid later. This is the logic behind persuading children while they are still ignorant and gullible, before they become ignorant and stubbornly unchanging adults. Similarly one might want to influence a young but growing firm or empire. This is also the logic behind trying to be involved in setting patterns and standards during the early days of a new technology. I remember hearing people say this explicitly back when Xanadu was trying to influence the future web. People who influenced the early structure of AM radio and FAX machines had a disproportionate influence, though such influence greatly declines when such systems themselves later decline.

The farming and industrial revolutions were periods of unusual high amounts of change, and we may encounter another such revolution in a century or so. If so, it might be worth saving and collecting resources in preparation for the extra influence available during this next great revolution.