Re: Delicate complexity? (was: RE: computronium prime-oxide_

Robin Hanson (hanson@econ.berkeley.edu)
Tue, 08 Dec 1998 16:10:43 -0800

On 11/23/98, Nick Bostro wrote:
>It appears to me that Anders and Robin (and Max?) have a tendency to
>think that there are lots of checks and balances in the nature of
>things, and that tradeoffs and diminishing returns guarantee that a
>large variety of different strategies will always co-exist. Eliezer
>and other extreme singularians (and to some extent me) seem to think
>that the world and posthuman society might well be more brittle, and
>that system could easily end up in one of the "boring" states,
>i.e. simple states.

I don't this this captures my opinion well. I'd say I'm not sure how much complexity we will see in the long term. My expectations of complexity are based on expectations of continuitiy of development. Things are pretty damn complex now and I don't forsee any sudden transitions big enough to wipe all that complexity away. There seems to be lots of legacy capital encouraging entities to retain compatibility with their diverse older versions.

Robin Hanson

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