Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom got famous for asking ‘What if technology is really really bad?’ He helped define ‘existential risk,’ popularize fears of malevolent superintelligence, and argue that we were living in a ‘vulnerable world’ prone to physical or biological catastrophe. His latest book breaks from his usual oeuvre. In Deep Utopia, he asks: ‘What if technology is really really good?’ Most previous utopian literature (he notes) has been about ‘shallow’ utopias. There are still problems; we just handle them better. There’s still scarcity, but at least the government distributes resources fairly. There’s still sickness and death, but at least everyone has free high-quality health care. But Bostrom asks: what if there were literally no problems? What if you could do literally whatever you wanted?” (10/17/24)