The Nonlinear Library LW - Without Fundamental Advances, Rebellion and Coup d'État are the Inevitable Outcomes of Dictators & Monarchs Trying to Control Large, Capable Countries by Roko
Jan 31, 2024
03:04
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Without Fundamental Advances, Rebellion and Coup d'État are the Inevitable Outcomes of Dictators & Monarchs Trying to Control Large, Capable Countries, published by Roko on January 31, 2024 on LessWrong.
A pdf version of this report will be available
Summary
In this report, I argue that dictators ruling over large and capable countries are likely to face insurmountable challenges, leading to inevitable rebellion and coup d'état.
I assert this is the default outcome, even with significant countermeasures, given the current trajectory of power dynamics and governance, and therefore when we check real-world countries we should find no or very few dictatorships, no or very few absolute monarchies and no arrangements where one person or a small group imposes their will on a country. This finding is robust to the time period we look in - modern, medieval, or ancient.
In Section 1, I discuss the countries which are the focus of this report. I am specifically focusing on nations of immense influence and power (with at least 1000 times the Dunbar Number of humans) which are capable of running large, specialized industries and fielding armies of at least thousands of troops.
In Section 2, I argue that subsystems of powerful nations will be approximately consequentialist; their behavior will be well described as taking actions to achieve an outcome. This is because the task of running complex industrial, social and military systems is inherently outcome-oriented, and thus the nation must be robust to new challenges to achieve these outcomes.
In Section 3, I argue that a powerful nation will necessarily face new circumstances, both in terms of facts and skills. This means that capabilities will change over time, which is a source of dangerous power shifts.
In Section 4, I further argue that governance methods based on fear and suppression, which are how dictatorships might be maintained, are an extremely imprecise way to secure loyalty. This is because there are many degrees of freedom in loyalty that aren't pinned down by fear or suppression. Nations created this way will, by default, face unintended rebellion.
In Section 5, I discuss why I expect control and oversight of powerful nations to be difficult. It will be challenging to safely extract beneficial behavior from misaligned groups and organizations while ensuring they don't take unwanted actions, and therefore we don't expect dictatorships to be both stable and aligned to the goals of the dictator
Finally, in Section 6, I discuss the consequences of a leader attempting to rule a powerful nation with improperly specified governance strategies. Such a leader could likely face containment problems given realistic levels of loyalty, and then face outcomes in the nation that would be catastrophic for their power. It seems very unlikely that these outcomes would be compatible with dictator survival.
[[Work in progress - I'll add to this section-by-section]]
Related work - https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GfZfDHZHCuYwrHGCd/without-fundamental-advances-misalignment-and-catastrophe
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org
A pdf version of this report will be available
Summary
In this report, I argue that dictators ruling over large and capable countries are likely to face insurmountable challenges, leading to inevitable rebellion and coup d'état.
I assert this is the default outcome, even with significant countermeasures, given the current trajectory of power dynamics and governance, and therefore when we check real-world countries we should find no or very few dictatorships, no or very few absolute monarchies and no arrangements where one person or a small group imposes their will on a country. This finding is robust to the time period we look in - modern, medieval, or ancient.
In Section 1, I discuss the countries which are the focus of this report. I am specifically focusing on nations of immense influence and power (with at least 1000 times the Dunbar Number of humans) which are capable of running large, specialized industries and fielding armies of at least thousands of troops.
In Section 2, I argue that subsystems of powerful nations will be approximately consequentialist; their behavior will be well described as taking actions to achieve an outcome. This is because the task of running complex industrial, social and military systems is inherently outcome-oriented, and thus the nation must be robust to new challenges to achieve these outcomes.
In Section 3, I argue that a powerful nation will necessarily face new circumstances, both in terms of facts and skills. This means that capabilities will change over time, which is a source of dangerous power shifts.
In Section 4, I further argue that governance methods based on fear and suppression, which are how dictatorships might be maintained, are an extremely imprecise way to secure loyalty. This is because there are many degrees of freedom in loyalty that aren't pinned down by fear or suppression. Nations created this way will, by default, face unintended rebellion.
In Section 5, I discuss why I expect control and oversight of powerful nations to be difficult. It will be challenging to safely extract beneficial behavior from misaligned groups and organizations while ensuring they don't take unwanted actions, and therefore we don't expect dictatorships to be both stable and aligned to the goals of the dictator
Finally, in Section 6, I discuss the consequences of a leader attempting to rule a powerful nation with improperly specified governance strategies. Such a leader could likely face containment problems given realistic levels of loyalty, and then face outcomes in the nation that would be catastrophic for their power. It seems very unlikely that these outcomes would be compatible with dictator survival.
[[Work in progress - I'll add to this section-by-section]]
Related work - https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GfZfDHZHCuYwrHGCd/without-fundamental-advances-misalignment-and-catastrophe
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org