Without A Sacred Quest, Our Civilization Falls

Most see sacred quests as optional, to be considered only after one has sufficient security and comfort. But in fact, our civilization will plausibly fall, to be replaced by other quite different ones, if we cannot manage to sufficiently organize around a shared civ-level sacred goal. Making that quest pretty essential. Let me explain.

Cultural drift threatens to topple our civilization, to be replaced by others with quite different values. I’ve talked often of three main solutions. But actually there’s another similar option, namely fragmentation: break the world into far more insular cultures who have deep, not just shallow, differences in norms and values. E.g., values re war, democracy, gender equality, or beating kids. Like the other solutions, this one has a decent chance of working given a particular assumption about value change, in this case that there come to exist many places where most folks have and reliably pass on to descendants a strong value for (1) insularity plus deep value differences.

The other three solutions instead require many places where most people have and reliably pass on strong values for (2) not blocking capitalism from running all areas of life, (3) group adaptive success, or (4) a sacred civ trajectory goal in conflict with civ collapse, e.g., date when 1M live in space, or lifespans reach 1Kyrs.

#1 has the problem that it could cause overly slow cultural evolution, while #3,4 have the problem of requiring unusually competent governance, to allow ordinary people to induce leaders to actually achieve those values. That is, it seems easier to check that your places/groups are different and insular, or not blocking capitalism, than to check if they are being adaptive, or on track to achieve grand civ-goals. I do see more competent governance as possible, though alas the world hasn’t moved that way much.

However, it seems to me that the most important consideration here, even more than how much governance competence is required, is: how plausible it is that large numbers of people will actually change to adopt these new values. Here #4 seems to me the clear winner. Yes, even the #4 value change seems a big ask, but the other options seem far bigger. It seems easier to get people to join sacred quests for goals like those that have long inspired great devotion, than to change values in historically strange ways. So let’s think about how to make #4 work.

Another problem with #4 is that, compared to #3, it seems to require a bigger group in order to enable competent governance. That is, it seems harder to reward leaders of small groups for contributions to civ-scale goals, as their actions can’t much affect such big goals. I’ve favored number-go-up governance for #3,4, wherein leaders are rewarded for increasing price estimates of future success.

That could be done by either firing leaders when numbers go down, and keeping them when they go up, or by paying them more as the number increases. However, I’ve most favored using futarchy (a.k.a. decision markets), in part because that would let most people participate more in governance, which could help them feel more attached to their sacred goal and its process of achievement. And fortunately, I’ve just realized how a variation on futarchy could address the needing-bigger-group problem.

In simple futarchy, there’s a key success parameter S, and we approve a proposal when prices say E[S|Yes] > E[S|No] by a big/clear enough margin, rejecting otherwise. Now let me introduce lexicographic futarchy, wherein we have a priority list of success parameters S1, S2, S3, etc. We approve if E[S1|Yes] > E[S1|No], as in simple futarchy. But now if E[S1|Yes] ~ E[S1|No], so that neither the Yes nor No value is big/clear enough above the other, we also approve if E[S2|Yes] > E[S2|No]. Furthermore, if E[S1|Yes] ~ E[S1|No] and also E[S2|Yes] ~ E[S2|No], then we approve if E[S3|Yes] > E[S3|No], and so on. If none of these tests can approve, then we reject.

I propose to govern small groups using #4, using a sacred civ goal, via lexicographic futarchy. The top parameter could be an estimate re achieving a civ-level goal, but the next parameter might be a measure of the capacity of that group to contribute toward that civ-level goal. That capacity parameter is one which group leaders could more substantially influence. So small groups would first try to increase their group’s influence capacity, and then switch to trying to more directly achieve the civ-goal when their efforts there could be sufficiently measured by the governance system.

As many such small groups grew, each oriented around its own civ-goal, groups might choose to merge together and adopt compromise goals. Lexicographic futarchy might approve such mergers, or they might happen via some other process.

Added 1Nov: Here’s a handy variation on lexicographic futarchy: proxy futarchy. The only decisions to be judged by S1 are proposals to change S2, and otherwise all decisions are judged by S2. So then a big group could set S1 to big group adaptiveness, while S2 would be the then current sacred civ goals.