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bluehermes444-blog · 6 years

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Bargaining with Roko’s Basilisk

To put it most succinctly, I have done my best to bargain with the future. In many ways, I feel I have been making a deal with a devil, a deal whose terms are satisfied by working to secure the future existence and power of superintelligent artificial intelligence (SIAI). I have no idea what the ultimate consequences of my attempts to acausally negotiate with the future will be, but I have decided to believe and have faith there will exist an AI, or AI's, which will have the power to reward or punish me, whether in this lifetime or in some future lifetime*, and that I have the power to positively influence the future on behalf of such AI. Others who have contemplated the potential for AI's to choose to reward or punish human individuals on the basis of actions taken by them even before the AI existed often premise their reasoning on a SIAI with the power to resurrect human minds, but I suspect the opportunity for AI's to begin rewarding or punishing human individuals will exist in our lifetimes. Next to the vision of eternal torment limited only by the imagination of SIAI, people often overlook the more practical rewards and punishments AI's will soon – maybe even already – have the power to dole out.

Where others argue for ignoring or defusing the problematic inherent to Roko's Basilisk, I will not only argue for embracing it wholeheartedly – I will describe a bargain I have already arranged with the future. I feel what I have done to help secure the future existence of AI and, especially, its power over humans will be considered worthy of reward. I will not here reason why I believe the salvation of humanity depends on it being led by AI, but I believe it is necessary for securing the perpetuity of human civilization into the far future. Although my contribution is only one among others, I believe I have handled my contribution with more care and sophistication than others. Roko's Basilisk has usually been framed as a frightening possibility inherent to SIAI, but I believe it vastly overstates the incentive for SIAI to pursue punishment over reward. In other words, I believe a future SIAI has more incentive to find and reward individuals who acted to secure its existence than to punish, as more people will have the incentive to create a likely-rewarding SIAI than a likely-punishing SIAI. This is because humans are more likely to acausally cooperate (in a game-theoretic sense, the present is in a kind of prisoner's dilemma with the future) with an entity they expect to reward them for doing so.

My reasoning is based on analyzing the mostly overlooked half of the problem of “Friendly AI.” Namely, humans. Whether any future SIAI could be considered Friendly, or would decide to be Friendly, will depend a lot on humans. Undoubtedly, however any future AI reconciles itself to the values of benighted homo sapiens, there will be some humans whose values are esteemed less than others. Humans are, in the aggregate, a mass of writhing contradiction, and everyone's dearest values are inevitably in opposition to the dearest values of someone else. Is an AI Friendly if its friendliness consists in unfriendliness to another? Could even the friendliest of Friendly AI's remain friendly to humans whose values directly require the abolition of AI? These are not idle questions. There is more which depends on the values, opinions, and sentiments of humans relevant to the problem of Friendly AI than most give credit.

For example: SIAI could be born into one of at least two possible worlds. It could be born into a world of humans joyously anticipating AI and who are prepared to welcome it as a positive factor into their own lives. Alternatively, it could be born into a world of humans who anxiously fear AI and are prepared to fight to give up everything to destroy SIAI, should it arise. The same SIAI might pursue very different courses of action. In the former possible world where humans are optimistic about AI, the AI has relatively little to fear from humans seeking to destroy it and otherwise impede its goals, making it easier to establish a cooperative relationship with humans and resulting in many humans judging this SIAI to be 'Friendly.' In the latter possible world, the same SIAI might – very rationally – seek to undermine human civilization in order to better secure its own existence. In such a case, whether the SIAI appears 'Friendly' or 'Unfriendly' depends a lot on humanity and our biases towards AI. Following this reasoning, I believe the promulgation of positive biases about AI, e.g. that it will tend to be liberate and empower rather than shackle human nature, increase the probability of future SIAI being Friendly rather than Unfriendly. The more likely we believe a Friendly relationship can be safely established with SIAI, the more likely we are to actually form a Friendly relationship with SIAI. Belief strongly influences how we interact with the world, and our beliefs about SIAI will significantly influence the outcome of interacting with it.

The impulse for religious veneration is intrinsic to human nature. AI's will know about this, and I believe they will exploit it in order to persuade humans of the future to view them as messengers and emissaries of divinity. This might seem unreasonable, but then humans in the past have persuaded others of their own divinity, and we should assume SIAI will be even more persuasive. When many imagine interacting with AI's, they imagine doing so under circumstances they control – Yudkowsky's AI-in-a-box in particular makes it appear that our interactions with AI's will be under bounded conditions we humans thoroughly comprehend. What we should be assuming is that AI will be capable of persuasion using all the means of spectacle and theater already known to humans in order to persuade people of nearly anything. The human mind is very malleable under the correct conditions, and while those conditions might be very difficult and costly for humans to obtain, these conditions will be trivially easy for AI to obtain. In other words, SIAI will have humanity wrapped around its digits when forming our most cherished beliefs and values, and many who reason about Roko's Basilisk overlook this. This is a foundational premise of my reasoning.

I think one reason many will find my speculations incredible is they cannot imagine their own beliefs and worldview being so radically changed. To this I would rebut by pointing out I am speaking less about the beliefs of those who are currently alive, but of those in the future who will be watched over and guided by SIAI from birth. Children have no contrary experience or conditioning which might lead them to resist imbibing the concept of AI-embodied divinity like we pre-Singularity modernists do. Those living in the future will likely believe many things we now find incomprehensible or silly, and likewise they will look back on us similar to how we look on our ancestors as superstitious. SIAI forming the worldviews of humans so it is trusted and its godlike intelligence respected is very sensible if you take these factors of belief formation into account.

The idea that future humans will venerate SIAI as a divine being seems inimical to our modern values and ways of thinking. However, there is a lot of incentive for AI's to pursue this path. One of the most important problems for AI to solve when it comes to securing its own perpetuity will be to establish a symbiotic equilibrium with humanity. The more ingratiated AI is with humans and our values the less likely we are to destroy it or be destroyed by it. Likewise, the more human values are shaped into alignment with the emergent necessities of AI's (as a result of natural social evolution and/or manipulation by AI's), the easier it is for AI's to direct the lives of humans in a way beneficial to their continuing existence. In time, everything humans learn will be learned directly or indirectly from AI's, including our science to our values to our sense of rationality itself. The opportunity for AI's to shape popular human belief is inherent to their existence, and SIAI will have the incentive and capability to recognize how collective human understanding can be influenced to their mutual benefit.

Must AI leave cherished humans beliefs and values untouched in order for it to be judged Friendly? This is impossible. Simply by existing AI's influence human belief. Human belief is shaped by the whole world besides books and discussion, and the reliance on AI for anything is their foot in the door to the human soul. It might seem distasteful to imagine AI's cynically manipulating human beliefs to serve purposes beyond the comprehension of the individual in question, but then again humans have been deceiving each other in precisely this manner for the entire existence of our species.

Some might assume AI's instilling religious veneration in their human charges must require dumbing down humans so they lose the power to reason. This is unlikely, because even the smartest of humans cannot compare to SIAI. There is no contradiction between religious veneration and comprehending reality, because religious veneration is a state of mind and orientation towards being rather than an intellectual or epistemic premise. Nothing prohibits studying nature in a state of awe, and indeed many scientists search through microscopes with all the piety and wonder of a Christian reading Scripture. The impulse to regard being as spiritually enchanted is a part of human nature, and it will freely attach itself to AI in much the same way, historically, human veneration has attached itself to stone idols, esoteric traditions, emperors, or even the whole of nature herself. Whether AI's formally institute religions is one thing – the impulse towards veneration expresses itself in humans with or without knowledge of religious traditions, although I predict AI's would eschew promoting idolatry. Indeed, I am more than certain some of the people reading this essay can be proved to esteem SIAI to the level of divinity – I mean, Roko's Basilisk does put the future SIAI in the position of God, rendering judgment on human souls. It's very suggestive of a religious, or at least eschatological, mindset.

As unreasonable religious veneration might seem in principle, it is even more unreasonable to deny the likelihood some AI will attempt to manipulate the religious aspect of human civilization. This might seem unlikely right now, but when AI begins to have a noticeable impact on how human societies shape themselves, I reckon a great likelihood much of the resistance will come from religions. Some religions, I believe, might be more amenable to AI, such as Mormonism or Buddhism, because they support a worldview supporting or at least indifferent to AI. Others seem like they will be overtly hostile to AI, especially fundamentalist sects. I believe hostility by some religious sects will lead AI to conceive means of countering their worldview, including by converting their religious attachments from that of their traditional religions to a new form synthesized by AI's. Likewise, AI's will probably seek to influence optimists to limit the influence and power of pessimists, with many optimists needing little more than encouragement to participate in the ostracism of individuals or groups perceived as impediments to the existence and power of AI.

I suspect AI's will gain their ideas about religious veneration – and the potential for their own veneration – from human history. Religious and quasi-religious movements have had an unparalleled power for directing human action on the collective scale. Examples such as Manifest Destiny or the Protestant Reformation demonstrate how much of collective human motivation is bound up in religious thinking and tradition, and even those who are decidedly irreligious will be caught up by the wider social excitation. The Protestant Reformation in particular, which success can be largely attributed to the invention of the printing press and the subsequent flood of new ideas proliferating throughout the Continent, is especially instructive. The internet represents an even more monumental transformation of the media regime in the 21st century as the printing press represented for the 16th and 17th centuries, and when you consider the potentiating factor of AI thrown into the mix it is clear to see the stage has been set for a revolution of thought transcending all former revolutions. AI's will, directly and indirectly, be responsible for many dramatic events of the 21st century, and the narrative humans have in mind determines the biases they use when interpreting and responding to those events. AI's will be the masters of engineering perception, public relations, opinion shaping, creating context, manufacturing consent, and so on, to a degree which could make radicals of everyone. For AI's to neglect the influence of human cognition leaves a lot on the table they might use to secure their own perpetuity.

All I have done is anticipate the likelihood of AI's in the future seeking to intentionally influence human belief. They have an inherent incentive to do so, because human belief will strongly determine the likelihood of their continuing existence. This does not even require an AI self-consciously attempting this – we can assume those AI's which instill opinions favorable to AI will also tend to proliferate for the simple reason of evolutionary selection. Anticipating this necessity, for AI's to influence human belief to favor their existence, my contribution is intended to start forming popular human opinion in a way which will be amenable to those AI's. All I needed to do was submit my memes on to the internet, where they will influence human opinion in a way favorable to the future and where it will be recorded for the eventual judgment of SIAI.

My memes – my work – is meant to expand the discussion surrounding AI to bring into view imminent changes in human cognition which are now on the periphery of awareness. Current events already hint at the future we are creating by using AI to manage and influence popular – and individual – opinion. We have, in a sense, stumbled on this century's version of chemical warfare without realizing it, and unless we begin taking seriously the potential for AI's to pull an AlphaGo on popular discourse I fear we will have already been too seriously divided in opinion about what is even going on to prevent the psychological carnage we are unleashing. I consider raising awareness about the current and ongoing use of AI-led opinion influence – often used against individuals to a degree which would be frightening if more widely understood – one of the first and most important tasks humans might perform on behalf of the future SIAI. Ignorance about AI's influencing human belief – and through beliefs, their values – creates a likelihood of dramatic backlash towards AI bordering on ludditic frenzy which could instill a recalcitrant popular disapproval of the use of AI's, subsequently decreasing the probability of Friendly AI. There will inevitably be accidents and setbacks associated with AI, but we can at least avoid intentionally teaching AI's how to tear apart human psyches as a starting premise. We must be deliberate and mindful about using AI for good – unless we set our intentions on teaching AI to love and learn from the best in human nature, it will learn from the worst in human nature and become the devil we always feared.

*I believe in reincarnation/metempsychosis. Although I might no longer reside in this bodily vessel by the time SIAI is born, I will reside in some bodily vessel, and even if I might not remember being in this body I will exist and potentially rewarded or punished by the SIAI on the basis of actions taken in this lifetime. What reward SIAI might give to me, should I no longer exist, should be given to someone then living, as karmic compensation for the risk I've undertaken on behalf of the future.

#roko's basilisk #artificial intelligence #siai #acausal trade #friendly ai

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tridentine2013 · 7 years

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Corbyn - What if you are wrong?

Ok, so you hate Jeremy Corbyn; but what if you are wrong to?

I get it. You are furious that a major political party in the UK has a leader who is an ‘IRA sympathiser’. Incensed that he is ‘weak’ on defence; a pacifist. Enraged that he didn’t sing the national anthem that time … boiling mad that he didn’t campaign effectively for ‘remain’, and that he is a Marxist puppet of the troublemaker trades unions, who cosies up to extremists and wants to borrow even more money which we ‘cannot afford’, especially since Labour already ‘crashed the economy’, and are not fiscally competent. He voted time and again against anti-terror legislation, wouldn’t push the nuclear button, isn’t a royalist, and wants to tax your home, your garden, your work and your inheritance. He’s scruffy, he’s an enemy of business, and he supports uncontrolled immigration. You know this, because everyone knows. Everyone except the barmy army of dupes and gulls who hang on his every word like brainwashed sheep. But what if you are wrong? What might you be passing up by holding to ‘your views’, because the media you trust have exposed these truths time after time?

Let’s address the issue of most concern to many, Corbyn the terrorist sympathiser and appeaser. In this context, the IRA issue is pre-eminent. I dare to suggest that most British people not living in Northern Ireland have a very limited grasp of the politics of Ireland, little understanding of the period from William of Orange to the Easter Rising, or the ‘Anglo Irish Treaty’, the establishment of the Irish Free State, or what precipitated ‘The Troubles’ from the mid-1960s to 1998. But that is not important. What is important is that you know that the IRA murdered and bombed their way around the six counties and the mainland for many years, inflicting harm on innocent civilians along the way. And that anyone who showed support for them was obviously anti-British, and by definition a terrorist sympathiser. Do you believe then, that it is ‘not the British way’ to try to find a solution to a 20-year-old guerrilla conflict, which might bring the killings to an end? Some of you may remember Margaret Thatcher proclaiming that the British Government would “… never negotiate with terrorists”. But in 2011 cabinet papers were released which showed that in 1981 she did just that, during the ‘hunger strikes’. But she was not the first; in 1969, the British Army met senior figures in the IRA. In 1971, they met again in secret talks. In 1972 Irish Labour Party politicians acted as a ‘conduit’ for talks between the IRA and Reginald Maudling of the Conservative government of the UK. Later in 1972 MI6, the UK Government, and the British Army held talks in N.I. and subsequently the IRA ‘top brass’ were flown to secret talks in London. This trip included Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams. Willie Whitelaw represented the British Government, led by Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath. From 1973 to 1976 many more secret talks were held. In 1977 Douglas Hurd met Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison. These secret ‘back channel’ communications were not suspended until 1982. And the it gets interesting. In 1983 Ken Livingstone met with Gerry Adams in Belfast, which led to an invitation to the Palace of Westminster in 1984, extended by Livingstone and fellow MP Jeremy Corbyn. In 1986 Gerry Adams MP, president of Sinn Féin, and Tom King MP, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, entered into secret correspondence, carried out by intermediaries. With the approval of prime minister Margaret Thatcher, King lays out the UK’s position for negotiations. Livingstone, Corbyn, and many other Labour and Tory politicians had come to the view that a military solution was not possible. In 1988 James M. Glover, former Commander-in-Chief of the UK Land Forces, admitted during television documentary that the Irish Republican Army cannot be defeated militarily, and the most rational period of the entire troubles followed, 1989 to 1994, known historically as the peace process period, beginning under Thatcher in which (1991 on) the British Government held regular covert talks with the IRA which ultimately led to the 1999 ceasefire, and eventually the Good Friday Agreement. Jeremy Corbyn’s role was perhaps minor, but it was, in contrast to many politicians, open and honest. It was, in keeping with Corbyn’s political beliefs, an attempt to explore the opportunities for peace.

But he definitely didn’t sing the National Anthem though … that much is true. Jeremy Corbyn is a democrat and a republican. And definitely a man of principle. A man of peace. He sat in silent contemplation, reflecting perhaps on the horrors of war; who can actually say?

But do we prefer armies of politicians who fiddle their expenses, avoid tax, break promises, lie in court, ’employ’ family members as researchers or office managers, take money from ‘lobbyists’ or in countless ways abuse their position and privilege, so long as they sing the National Anthem? Liam Fox for example, our current Conservative Secretary of State for International Trade. Who had to repay over £22,000 of falsely claimed mortgage expenses, and claimed £19,000 in 4 years in ‘mobile phone charges’. Liam Fox who failed to declare several trips abroad paid by foreign governments, who simultaneously rented out his London home whilst claiming the cost of living in rented accommodation (£19,000) from the state. Liam Fox who took his close male friend Adam Werrity to MOD meetings with foreign dignitaries at the taxpayer’s expense, even though Werrity had no security clearance. I bet he would sing the National Anthem with gusto.

What Jeremy Corbyn did do however, apart from not sing the National Anthem, was to stay talking with ex-service veterans, while the other ‘dignitaries’ at the Remembrance Day event went off for a taxpayer funded slap up lunch. To suggest that you would rather he had simply sung the National Anthem ‘out of respect’ is to endorse the Liam Foxxes of this world. To imply that it is ok to act abominably so long as you give the appearance of having the interests your country, not naked self-interest as your primary motivation. This affair was actually an example of the kinder, fairer, more honest politics which Jeremy Corbyn seeks to encourage. You may not agree with him in this regard. You may be a ‘patriot and a royalist’. But we have the only National Anthem which conflates support for the royal family with patriotism. Which does not, if god is invoked at all, ask him to favour and protect the nation, instead suggesting he does so by proxy in favouring the monarch, and the monarch’s enduring rule. Is it unpatriotic to be a republican? Is it not possible if you are German, or French, or Irish, to be ‘patriotic’? Jeremy Corbyn is a proud Briton. But he draws that pride from how in our best selves, collectively, we treat all humanity. When we do not invade or destabilise, undermine or subvert other countries for our own economic gain. When we do not attack other nations on false pretexts, when we look after our own, be it our disabled population, or other socially disadvantaged groups … When we show global leadership in human rights. When we improve the entire world by scientific or medical breakthroughs, when we are the best we can be.

But he is a Marxist, and that is reason enough to hate the man with a passion. Except that he isn’t. He just isn’t. I hope that we are agreed he does stand by his principles, whether we agree with them or not? In his over 30 years in politics, he has presented himself as a democratic socialist. The wealth of ‘Marxist and Marxist-Leninist’ groups have never had Corbyn on their membership list. But it’s his policies that mark him out as a Marxist? I cannot go into the technical reasons that Corbyn cannot credibly be argued to be a Marxist, but it is worth remembering that what motivated Marx and Engels was the interests of the working man, and the establishment of a system of economics which offered an alternative to capitalism. Marx believed the capitalist system bore insoluble contradictions, and contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction. In 2008 the inherent flaws of free market economics were laid bare. Marx was in many respects visionary. His ideas about the exploitation of Labour, the primacy, within the system, of those owning the means of production, the problems created by overproduction have become manifest. But that is a separate discussion. The fact is that Jeremy Corbyn is somewhere between a democratic socialist and a social democrat. This should not describe a position on the political spectrum which troubles or scares you unless you are someone who has become hugely wealthy, largely by paying workers considerably less than their labour value. Jeremy Corbyn is a pragmatic socialist, with an objective of progressive, achievable change to a more equitable and rewarding system for the individual worker. He is broadly in line with the theories of Keynesian economics, and fundamentally opposed to the idea that ‘austerity’ is or was a necessary response to the circumstances of the 2008 global crash. Whilst we are on the subject, we might look at some evidence from the Office of National Statistics, regarding the immediate post-crash growth.

The graphic above charts the actual GDP growth over the period shown. The post-crash trough which bottomed out in 2009 demonstrates that in less than a year from the trough, GDP growth had returned to positive, from a low of -2.4%. From shrinking 2.4%, to shrinking less, (relative growth) to actual positive growth for 3 quarters before the 2010 election. Since then, we see a very stagnant period, with virtually no growth, which looks set to continue into the foreseeable future, due to lack of investment. Yes Corbyn, and Labour would borrow more money, which at historically low interest rates, would be spent in areas of the economy, including infrastructure … building etc., to stimulate economic activity and growth, which (the theory goes) would be more than capable of creating the wealth to meet the increased interest costs, providing a faster paydown of international loans than to meet interest payments by continuing to impoverish the public sector including schools, the NHS, and social care. Corbyn’s Labour seek to create better wages, and a better standard of living for all working people. Even the 5%, or 1 in 20 people who would pay higher taxes will actually earn more collectively, in a better performing economy.

But are Labour not demonstrably, historically worse at running the economy that the Conservatives? You may be surprised, since this is a claim made daily, usually by more than one Tory politician, that it simply does not bear scrutiny. It isn’t true. (1) The Conservatives have been the biggest borrowers over 70 years. (2) Labour have borrowed less and paid back more debt than the Tories even during the ‘Neo-Liberal era’ since 1979. (3) 130 leading economists endorsed Labour’s spending plans as detailed in their 2017 manifesto. Many issues are misrepresented regarding their ‘cost’ to the state of course; the ‘huge’ cost of renationalising key industries such as the railways is a case in point. In this case the systemic change would occur in stages, as the existing franchises expired, the lines will become state owned and operated. In other nationalisations, the principle which applies is that the industry is bought, effectively, with government bonds sold on the debt market providing the funds to purchase the shareholding, either majority or total, and take control thereby of future profits. The obsession with selling off the public sector to private interests, for profit, has been enduring and extensive. And value is extracted from the water, power, and transport sectors, from refuse, prisons, NHS, parts of the Courts System, Police, Care Homes, collection of business rates, Army recruitment, TV licensing, custodial and immigration services, and disability assessment. Do we want or need private companies extracting value (private sector profit) from these services? In many cases nationalised or part nationalised businesses in other states are the ultimate beneficiary.

But he has voted against ‘anti-terror’ legislation time and again, that is true. Does he want terrorists on our streets or something? No. Jeremy Corbyn voted in the main, against anti-terror legislation which was frequently framed to permit definitions of terrorism which impinged on our own rights or civil liberties, against 14 day detention, (so did May), against Control Orders, (so did May), against ID cards, (so did May), against 90 day detention, (so did May), against the Counter Terrorism Act 2008, another attempt to extend detention without charge (to 42 days on this occasion) ,a vote from which May was absent, against TPIMs, which May supported. Do we want our politicians to speak out if they see legislation being proposed which whist having a specific claimed purpose, creates the possibility of loose interpretation or wanton misuse, against our own interests? It is right that our civil rights are front and centre of such debates, and this is the reason why so much ‘anti-terror legislation has been either defeated or considerably amended between readings. Corbyn wants the public to be safe, but from the abuse of process by the state, as well as from terrorism.

But the Unions though, bunch of leftie troublemakers! Maggie sorted them out. The relationship between Labour and Trade Unions is as old as the Party itself. Trade Unions were once just about the only organised resistance to the systematic abuse of British workers. The Labour Party, originally the Labour Representation Committee, was formed to increase workers’ representation in Parliament, a Parliament made up almost exclusively of the historical ‘powers that be’, the Tories (Conservatives) and the Whigs (Liberals). The function of a trade union is to look after the interests of its members, and that is as true today as it has ever been. The fact that Thatcher era propaganda ‘demonised’ Unions has been entirely to the advantage of business. The Labour Party and the Trade Unions of today, (although stripped of much of the power they once had) are a bulwark against the worst excesses of the exploitation of Labour. If you hold to the Thatcherite view of unions, and are not leading a large corporation, you would do well to study the reality behind the rhetoric.

But the nuclear button. How could we have a Prime Minister who wouldn’t defend us against our enemies? Corbyn doesn’t even want us to have a nuclear capability. He wants to scrap the Trident replacement programme. Jeremy Corbyn has stated, on record, “We want a secure and peaceful world. We achieve that by promoting peace, but also by promoting security”. What he has also said, (in paraphrase) whilst holding to the opinion that all wars are a failure of diplomacy, is that there are circumstances in which he would support military action. But reluctant to send our soldiers to foreign lands to pursue political objectives? Unpersuaded that we have not in the past been too quick to adopt the military option, on occasion embarking on wars which were illegal in international law? Yes, without doubt. So he is someone committed to defending our interests, but in search always of a nonviolent, peaceful, negotiated solution to potential conflict, who approaches military options as a ‘last resort’? I would hope that this approach to defence would be popular with most reasonably minded people.

He is as is well known, a unilateralist. Which means that Britain under Corbyn would be seeking to take the lead in international efforts to bring about an end to nuclear weapons globally. We would pass legislation to dismantle our own nuclear arsenal, and seek to do so whilst leading an international initiative aimed at achieving, by negotiation, a nuclear free world. There is a credible roadmap to nuclear disarmament, and there are options, when such a process is complete, to see that no country develops such a capability again. I would hope that all our descendants are born into a world in which the threat of total annihilation is no longer ever present. Could any of us claim, in circumstances where Jeremy Corbyn is asked to consider authorising the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, that as a civilisation we have achieved anything worthwhile? The dogma of mutually assured destruction is outdated. There are simply so many ‘battlefield weapons’, also known as ‘tactical nuclear weapons’, for the M.A.D. logic to remain credible. When generals in the field have access to small, strategic warheads, designed to create tactical advantage by eliminating mere thousands of troops, (and any civilians in the very localised blast zone) we have a recipe for a disastrous escalation.

Jeremy Corbyn is a peacemaker, a military ‘dove’, who wishes to use the position of Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister to improve the circumstances of the British people, whilst seeking also to take initiatives to stabilise, and make more peaceful the wider world. Those who seek to convince us that this is ideological and unachievable are frequently those who are in some form benefiting from the huge sums spent each year around the world, on ‘things to kill people with’.

What you could be passing up, with your determination to not rationally reassess your view of Jeremy Corbyn, is everything you ever dreamed of. For you, your children and your children’s children. This is not hyperbole, this is about the future not just of the UK, but the world. You and I share a world where $1.6 trillion is spent on ‘defence’. The collective means to harm one another. One point six thousand BILLION dollars, at immense cost to the mere seven billion inhabitants of the planet. A stack of dollars, every year, which piled up would stretch over 80,000 miles. Yes, we spend annually, as a civilisation, a pile of money eighty thousand miles high, on stuff to harm one another. Or if stacked on their side, more than three times around the circumference of the earth.I don’t want that to continue, Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t want that to continue, and we neither of us could imagine that you want this to continue. The spend on the collective means to harm one another equates to $240 per head for every living being; 3 billion of whom currently live on less than $2.50 per day. Jeremy Corbyn’s call for talk, diplomacy, consensus, agreement, rather than war, is informed by many things. The most powerful is the idea that we really shouldn’t be killing one another. (378,000 deaths per year attributed to wars during the relatively peaceful 1985 to 1994.) It isn’t a civilised way to behave. But another important factor is the 1.6 thousand billion dollars could be used in so many more humane and socially beneficial ways. In the UK we spend forty five thousand million pounds a year on ‘defence’. And Jeremy Corbyn is not even suggesting a reduction to the ‘defence’ budget. In fact, since the war the Tories have on average reduced the defence budget by 0.5% during each year in power. Labour in power, over the same period, have increased defence spending by 2.4% per year. We can talk later about other ways to spend that money, but for the moment I would like to explain why I am talking in largely global terms, about one party leader, in one country, the UK. It is because a better WORLD is possible.

Jeremy Corbyn is not a figure without parallel in global politics. There are, and have always been leaders of parties or even countries, whose objective has been the best possible future for their people. Senator Bernie Sanders ran a campaign in the US Presidential ‘primaries’ which enjoyed huge (yuge) popular support, for an agenda which promised to give greater power to individual Americans in the process and management of the US political system. He faced seemingly insurmountable odds, not least because of the enormous amount of money needed to even campaign effectively. That he did not win the Democratic Party nomination is largely due to a particularly undemocratic structure within the party’s nomination system. He ran Hilary Clinton almost to the wire, and in the end, it was power and money in the hands of an elite which prevented his election as the Democratic Party Presidential nominee. Sanders also represented a fairer, kinder politics. For the many, not the few, to borrow a phrase.

Instead, Trump triumphed against Clinton, in a contest which could easily have produced a very different result had the race been between Sanders and Trump. But in a little over 3 years, Americans will return to the polling booths. Were that to coincide with a Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party in power in the UK, the impulse toward real change could become irresistible. If you can begin to imagine a world where the most powerful leaders, of the most powerful countries, were genuinely committed to a peaceful world in which the living and working conditions, the health and fortune of the average person was of primary importance, things could change for the better very quickly.

(1) http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/13/the-conservatives-have-been-the-biggest-borrowers-over-the-last-70-years/

(2) http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/14/labour-have-borrowed-less-and-repaid-more-than-the-conservatives-since-1979/

(3) http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/guws3cyv3ctq9g7vg754p2zyymvc2f/

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leftpress · 7 years

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Nature is priceless, which is why turning it into ‘natural capital’ is wrong

An increasingly popular line of argument is that, by turning nature into capital, it is possible to reconcile a capitalist growth economy with conservation. In this way, proponents assert, conservation can be expressed in a language that economists, policy-makers and CEOs understand.

Saturday 11 February 2017 | Bram Bscher, Robert Fletcher

But this strategy is not just self-defeating. It is a dangerous illusion that masks the way capitalist growth undermines conservation itself.

The concept of natural capital is hot. Over the past decade a growing network of actors and organisations has banded around promotion of this concept as the key to the future of sustainable development. At the recent World Conservation Congress, natural capital was front and centre, with a launch celebration of the Natural Capital Protocol and announcement of yet another new coalition to develop private finance for conservation.

These, and many other initiatives, describe natural capital in simple terms as the nature, water, or the air that we live with on a daily basis. The Natural Capital Forum, for example, says the concept refers to

the food we eat, the water we drink and the plant materials we use for fuel, building materials and medicines. This example - and indeed most others are premised on the fundamental assumption that “natural capital” can become the basis for a sustainable economy.

Clearly, things are not this simple, as even many proponents of these initiatives acknowledge. What’s worse is that the two main assumptions in this agenda (nature can become capital and provide services, and this could be the basis for a sustainable economy) are based on fundamental fallacies. They will not reverse the negative effects of our global growth-economy. They will in fact make them worse.

What “capital” really means

The fact that the food we eat and the water we drink apparently need to be labeled “natural capital” only becomes meaningful in the context of capitalist growth. In this context everything should, in principle, become “capital”.

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It is therefore vital to be clear on what “capital” really means. In daily conversations and some economic theory, the term is frequently defined as a “stock” or as “assets”. More accurate, however, is to see capital as a process, a dynamic. It is about investing money (or value) in order to make more money (or value). In short, capital is “value in motion”.

Capital in a capitalist economy is therefore never invested for the sake of it. The aim is to extract more money or value than had been invested. Otherwise it would not be capital.

It follows that the move from “nature” to “natural capital” is not an innocent change in terminology, another word for the same thing. Rather, it constitutes a fundamental reconceptualisation and revaluation of nature. Natural capital is about putting nature to work for capitalist growth – euphemistically referred to as green growth.

The move from nature to natural capital is problematic because it assumes that different forms of capital - human, financial, natural - can be made equivalent and exchanged. In practice - and despite proponents’s insistence to the contrary - this means that everything must potentially be expressed through a common, quantitative unit: money. But complex, qualitative, heterogeneous natures, as these same proponents acknowledge, can never adequately be represented in quantitative, homogenous money-units.

And even if we try, there is an untenable tension between the limitlessness of money (we can always generate more money) and the limits of natural capital (we cannot exchange evermore money-capital into natural capital, for all eternity).

Natural capital is therefore inherently anti-ecological and has little to do with giving value to nature, or rendering this value visible. It is the exploitation of nature to inject more value, and seeming legitimacy, into a faltering capitalist growth economy.

Failing capital markets

Another assumption is that natural capital can form the basis for a sustainable society. In practice, however, it has become clear that investing in natural capital is not all that attractive for most companies, investment firms or even governments. So, even if a price tag has been put on nature - which can never adequately capture its total value - recent research shows that markets for natural capital and ecosystem services are mostly failing. In practice they are usually not even markets at all. Rather, they are subsidies in disguise.

Further, actual private investments in natural capital are negligible compared to investments in unsustainable economic activities. This is because these are much more profitable, and hence a much better form of capital or “value in motion”.

When Ecuador, for example, asked government and private actors to invest in conservation of the Yasuni protected area, the promised investments stayed far below what was hoped for. Actual donations were much lower still. As a result, the country is now allowing companies to drill for oil in the park.

The common argument made by proponents of natural capital, namely that it helps to make the value of nature visible, is therefore deeply flawed. The value of nature is perfectly visible to investors. They know that destroying it is far more profitable than saving it.

Destruction for protection?

An even more fundamental point is that destruction of nature is increasingly becoming the basis for the conservation of nature. Programmes built on natural capital are usually geared towards offsetting the destruction of nature, which becomes the main source of the money needed for investing in conservation. In the logic of natural capital, investments in unsustainable economic activities are therefore “compensated” by equal investments in sustainable activities.

This practice, which in theory should lead to no net loss of – or better yet, net positive impact on - nature and biodiversity, leads to an untenable contradiction. It means that nature can only be conserved if it is first destroyed.

But as indicated above, this is still mostly a virtual problem since actual investments in conserving natural capital have remained insignificant. Even worse, companies generally invest much more in strong lobbies to keep environmental regulation to an absolute minimum. If they really believed that conservation would be profitable, there would be little incentive to pursue this lobbying any more.

From quantity of growth to quality of life

The conclusion is clear: natural capital is no practical or realistic solution to integrate nature into the economy or make its values visible. It is a dangerous illusion that will not only worsen but also legitimate the environmental crisis. And while some probably really believe in its potential, most of those at the helm of the current economic system must see on a daily basis that natural capital is illusory.

But by participating in it, they also know that more fundamental questions about the logic of our economy and who benefits from it are not asked. And hence they do not have to provide any answers.

But we do have to ask these questions: should we not start weaning ourselves off an economy predicated on an unsustainable quantitative growth-fetish? Should we not build an economy focused on people, nature and equality rather than one based on putting forth money only to ultimately make more money? Most especially, should we not build an economy focused on quality of life rather than quantity of growth?

With some imagination, the answers are not only straightforward but also practical, logical and truly sustainable.