Disillusionment with liberalism is rising and liberals think apocalypse going to happen
Not prepared to deal with with internet and technology
Don’t know how to use this correctly —> breakdown of ourselves
Problem: people feeling irrelevant, technology too advanced and people feel like they’re falling behind
Class distinctions based on information: people that know a lot and can keep up > those that cannot
Liberalism meant for ordinary people, not high tech world
Populism is way of reacting to irrelevance by using political power
Has had bouts of confidence issues before
New movements are no longer global visions with wide consequences
Ex: Russia’s oligarchy, caliphates
Trying to follow own nationalistic tale, all idiosyncratic
Liberalism always used economic growth to overcome problems; but now, it is causing the problem
Work
Machines best at physical, now slowly become better at cognition
Immense benefits to humans but may take jobs
Jobs likely to be lost: highly specialized and routine task jobs
Family doctors automation > nurses
Job opportunities in servicing and leveraging AI
Problem: harder to retrain uneducated unemployed people
New useless class. Labour shortage and unemployment
More volatility as AI continues to imprve in jobs —> displace people from livlihood
Ways to solve
Slow down tech adoption: subsidize lifelong learning to get trained professionals ready
Universal basic income and service
Countries that are actually affected might not have $ to serve people; should be global
Must define basic human needs: strong communities, meaningful pursuits…
Liberty
Individual freedoms and economic liberalism is foundation of Western liberalism
Based on human feelings, not rationality
Computer algos might be able to better understand human feelings —> better descisions
Biotech and infotech: can detect diseases —> will be ‘sick’ constantly as sensors can predict very early
Algorithms don’t have to be perfect, just better than humans
No longer autonomous individuals <—- democratic liberalism decreases
Algorithms can make better ethical decisions as they are coded into them
Robots won’t rise up, but are too obedient (eg. if code is cruel, robot will follow the instructions perfectly)
Technology
Globalization and technology will create huge inequalities:
Rich can go into biological supremacy and get even more richer —> inequality rise
Person that is most powerful is person with control of data
Big companies try to store our data. We are the products
Solution: find a way to regulate data to prevent ultrapowerful corporation
Community
Sociopolitical upheavels <— lack of human communities
Humans need intimate communities
Offline communities are especially important as we are starting to ignore physical feelings for online communities
People less and less atuned to physical —> disoriented
Civilization
Religion is what you make of it: no set definition
Human groups are special among animal groups as we merge
Usually merge from economic interests or war (effective)
World groups changed from having links to sharing same polutical beliefs —> inherent to successs of that country
Continue to become more and more interdependent; clash of civilizaton theory is wrong
Nationalism
Not normal to humans —> huge social construct
Mild patriotism is necessary for huge systems to work
Requires education and propaganda
Problem: ultra-nationalism (my country > all)
Problems of war from nationalism has been forgotten
Ecological problems hard to solve with nationalism becasuse of uneven consequences and global problems
Technological problems cannot be addressed as tech is independent of national interests. Competition between nation increases —> high-risk/high-reward technology in research
Divided world is unable to solve these challenges
Must complement local interests with global obligations (EU)
Should globalize politics: weight global matters more
Religion
3 types of problems in 21st century: technical, policy and identity and only religion can help with identity problems
Religious leaders not great at solving technical and policy problems and can only intrepret why they are problems
Religion has turned into approval stamp, not origin of solutions
Religion is crucial in defining us vs. them —> handmaid of nationalism
Makes more problems as it results in more divisions
Immigration
People migrate to places with best track record of accepting refugees
4 debates:
Should countries allow immigrants
Are immigrants assimilating
Should immigrants be equal once they assimilate
Are the immigrants fulfilling debate 3?
Debate 1:
Pro-immigration: human obligation, bst to legalize smth. that will inevitably happen
Anti-immigration: no obligation <— right to defend against invasion, wants to prevent citizenship (Qatar)
Debate 2:
Pro-immigration: no one follows universal European values, so why should immigrants?
Anti-immigration: allows intolerant people, need to accept culture fully
Debate 3:
Pro-immigration: should not take too long
Anti-immigration: long probation
Dissonance between personal timescale and collective timescale
Debate 4:
Pro: goverment not following 3
Anti: immigrants not following 2, so 1 and 3 should not follow from government
Tend to weight violations of boths sides > compliance of both sides
Culturism is rising: one culture is superior to another
Cultural norms clash: Warmlandia and Coldia example
Discrimination against cultures until culture conversion
Culturalism problem:
Culture only superior in specific contexts, not objectively superior
Claims about superiority are not objective
Used to judge individuals
Culturalism often leads to imbalance in representation, but often makes ense if viewed in cultural terms
Terrorism
Terrorism doesnt kill a lot, fuelled by fear
Trying to force a stronger nation to act foolishly
Based on theater acts —> can play on fear. Therefore, combat terrorists like theater act
Terrorists raise impossible challenge to governments: protect all citizens of political violence anytime and anywhere
Pursuit of completing challenge leaves country in dire straits
Problem: terrorism undermines legitimacy of government
Peace = natural right now. Small violent acts —> big shock in peaceful places
Counter-terrorism on 3 fronts:
Hit terrorists in clandestine fashion where it hurts
Media cannot fuel hysteria
Stop imagining terrorist and fear
Cant use theoretical threat of nuclear/bioterorrism to justify why terrorism is a concern <— huge opportunity cost
War
Current years seems just like 1914, except we are all know that war is not the solution in solving problems
Crimea invasion only one that was successful, but due to unique conditions (no power stepped in, resistance down)
Led to economic sanctions: not worth it
Trying to make up for earlier weaknesses
Russia cannot start WWIII: economically weak, cannot win tech race, no universal ideology
Wars are hard to win now because:
Hard to get economic benefit from war now
Cyberwarfare can bring war to aggressor in minutes
Humility
Everyone thinks that their culture is the best
Ethics and morality not tied to a single religion
Monotheism caused more problems —> intolerance
God
Religious laws usually used to legitimize social norm/ political decisions
Not needed for moral human beings, only need appreciation of suffering
Religion is double-edged sword: can provide justification for socially productive/unproductive acts (curb anger and terrorism)
Secularism
Secular people believe that morals and wisdom is not monopolized in a religion. Follow universal code of ethics.
Fundamental pillar is truth based on objectivity and not faith
Another is compassion: base decisions on human suffering
Tries to solve dilemmas with compassin and choosing least destructive path
Unknown should be investigated with science
Responsibility to change world for better
Religion is fine in secular state so long as secularism > religion
Problem with secularism: too many ethical standards
Difficult to lead people based on secularism
Religions cannot mistakes, but secularism can
Ignorance
We are not rational agents that know everything
People make policies about things they don’t understand much about
Based on groupthink
If you have power, you will never truly know whats going on
Everyone has secret agendas
Justice
Modern sense of justice not compatible with millions of people
Casual relationships are hard to understand now
Blissful ignorance can fuel unfair situations (eg. stocks in BEIC)
Being part of a disadvantaged group doesnt mean you know how other disadvantaged groups feel
4 methods used currently to judge large scale dilemmas:
Downsize issue to only a couple of actors
Personal stories (v. effective compared to stats)
Conspiracy theories
Ideological dogmas
Post-Truth
We were always in the post-truth era
We use fiction and myths to create culture —> follow laws —> social harmony
Propaganda does this all the time
Repeat a few lies 1000s of times —> truth
Mythology needed for mass movements
Can also bind people by making something seem valuable to everyone else —> gets bigger (eg. currency)
Humans prefer power and unity to truth
Fake news is not an easy problem to counter
Get permium news, look at peer-reviews papers
Science Fiction
Science fiction translates science to real world people
Free will is product of biochemical reactions —> not really free
Education
We already have too much information, no need to cram more
Important skill: synthesis and analysis of information