Transumanar

The danger of a completely unaccountable power elite - an existential threat for humanity?

We have been discussing existential threats that threaten humanity, such as asteroids, rogue nanoids, diseases. However have we been ignoring the deeply corrupting of concentration of wealth? Has a very small elite of human beings become so rich they risk endangering the rest of humanity - especially of an approaching “singularity” keeps giving this elite ever more advanced means to project their will on the rest of humanity? Do we need to look at such extreme concentration of power and take steps to reduce the disparities, in order to protect us from these unaccountable, inherently self-serving, antidemocratic power elites?

Today I have written the lifeboat foundation with an urgent request to add a wholly new class of existential risk to humanity.

Lifeboat foundation lists an extensive list of socalled existentiial risks. These risks are all real dangers to the majority of humanity in the future. If we include those risks of that category I’d also include another risk, which seems to be completely ignored.

I’d add the dangers posed by of an elite of ultra-rich humans. Such an elite of humanity may very well decide to use robotics, nanotechnology, limited AI, nonlethal and lethal weapons, mind control and their already obscene affluence to consolidate their power over the world and simply exclude the rest of humanity. And personally I would regard that possibility as a bigger risk to the majority of humanity than any of the above risks listed. Is this an imagined risk? I think not. The track record of “the powerful” (other than governments) has been ghastly - even in recent history. I do not allege that such an elite will be a unified conspiracy dead set on making life miserable for the less fortunate of society - but even without resorting to projecting a conspiracy on these people, it’s quite clear what’s happening in the more affluent societies, such as the US - the elite uses already abuses political processes to deconstruct common national resources, reduce taxes for the privileged, enacts more draconian legal infrastructure, a morbidly skewed justice system and bizarre legal penalties. And the list goes on, a consistent pattern of the aflluent leveraging hidden costs to those with less economic power. Recent examples are in health care, the environment, global warming, security (enclaves), quality of food.

At some point in the next decades an ever increasing number of useful economic activity can be arguably done by machines. The humans left unemployed by such economic shifts could be left useless, excluded (especially in right-wing countries that have yet to accept welfare as a part of civilized society) and ultimately disallowed to reproduce, or similarly treated to reduce their imprint on the world. Retraining such huge numbers in the timespan is a ludicrous proposal and at best can serve to aggravate the situation - if a human being is left redundant in this new polarized economy he can easily be scapegoated, because “he should be flexible and retrain”. Again, this can be regarded as leveraging off the societal costs of automation off on society, where the rich (the corporate sector) keeps all benefits to themselves.

These elites will use means at their disposal (ad they clearly have a track record of doing already) to curtail space, resources, food, energy or opportunity to those they regard as useless, using whatever definition they themselves dictate. One look at how the rich and corporations have been treating the third world is a clear indicator of the inherent ruthlessness in people who are left unaccountable by the majorities. They can do as they please and have been doing so. And this trend is worsening.

Power begets power. People with power want more power, at the exclusion of all others. Te biggest risk to people living today is an terminal state of exclusion of the vast majority of humanity. The rich may act contrary to democratic principles, may do so with “us” being unable to do anything about it. They may decide the world is overpopulated (which is clearly is) and decide the unproductive and disowned are the biggest problem.

I urge the lifeboat foundation to start regarding the grossly inequitable disparities between obscene wealth in the hands of some and dehumanizing poverty in most others as one of the greatest existential threats to humanity - and to assertively act to oppose this ongoing degenerative process in todays world and economies. To refrain from acknowledging this risk would be negligent, cowardly and inconsistent.

Most poignantly, I urge all who read this to consider if he or she is part of this elite or has a fair chance of being part of it. This is an issue that clearly transcends ideological dualities such as right and left, socialist or globalist, progressive or conservative. When considering the dangers of an elite granted such clearly outrageous power and superiority over the rest of society, when technology will allow them to abuse any near-singularity advances, is extremely naive. If you consider this issue whether or not it is an existential danger I ask everyone - did you recently meet any of the 5% of humanity that ownes 75% of all things on this planet? Do you know any of those people? Do you think you have any chance of ever being part of this global power elite?

Posted by on 01/12 at 06:22 PM

Good post.

Posted by Dale Carrico on 01/12 at 07:40 PM
Exactly. One early example you can see in Dubai. sinde a few years I call it: Transhuman Ghettos of the super rich (in german: Transhumane Reichenghettos). Or take closed communities everywhere and then where you dont´t even know them. Technological acceleration is not only full of possiblities for utopian realisations but also a vehicle for concentration of wealth and power. The trends in this regard can be seen in all western nations.

Nice to see someone mentioning this as a real thread for the simple rest of us.

Posted by Siggi Becker on 01/12 at 10:48 PM
Sadly this is not a risk, but a fact - there have always been power-hungry elites. We humans are wired to want brighter feathers than our neighbor (read higher status, more money, and especially more power). This is the effect of evolution, and of course greed and drive for power have been powerful evolutionary advantages. But I think transhumanism is all about taking control of our evolution as soon as we have the means. So perhaps we will not be wired to want brighter feathers at all cost forever. But I don’t think basic human drives will change much over the next few decades.

So of course power-hungry elites will try using emerging “superlative” technologies to widen the gap, which is already too wide. The worse scenario is a small elite of immortal “supermen” taking off at the expense of the “little people”.

But I am not so pessimist. First, a big “conspiration” is not sustainable because there will always be someone ready to betray the others for personal gain, in this case by siding with the little people against the supermen. Second, I think the trend toward P2Ping and open-sourcing new technologies is now established. So as soon as superlative technologies will be developed, I hope they will find their way to the P2P street pretty soon, regardless of the elites’ whishes.

Posted by on 01/13 at 05:53 PM
I mostly agree, but why would extreme inequality be an existential risk? The people in power want to stay in power, so they don’t want humans to go extinct or to be set back thousands of years. They will treat poorer people horribly, but that doesn’t destroy civilization.

Posted by peco on 01/14 at 03:31 AM
Look at the facts. People in affluent nations have been exploiting, enslaving, sterilizing and genociding for thousands of years. The amounts of deaths due to these exploitative practices is immense.

But fairly recently we have seen technology unsettle this process. Corporations and corrupt politicians have thrust third world nations in abject poverty and have supported aligned dictatorships. The human cost has been ghastly.

And often it isn’t even intentional - if a rich member of society lobbies and votes for lower tax regimes and lives in a gated community, he reduces the rest of society - and apart from responding with criminal activity or outright civil war the rest of society can do zip.

My personal conclusion is that, since the human species doesn’t have much in terms of natural enemies, a subset of what I regard as “fascist genes” has become the default predatorial enemy. This can be every human - even a formerly poor lottery winner will instantly transform in such an aloof predatorial elitist.

Now this is something we have always accepted, even in the mid of the industrial age when bloated victorian overlords prospered and the poor wre literally starving in diseased slums. And that state of affairs is still the norm in most of the third world.

The world however is entering a new age - an era where overopulation will seen be inescapably regarded as the root cause of so many evils in the world. And with the right tools the elite class of humanity will have the power to completely escape the normal biological margins it still inhabits. It can achieve immortality, almost divine affluence, increased intellect and services and goods we can only dream of.

And there is substantial incentive for them to further corral those useless poor into gettos or worse, take steps to change the world into one they prefer.

The more advanced technology the easier this will become and the more brutal actions can be taken with no imputiny whatsoever. One look at the atrocities happening under our eyes, in name of “the war against terror” -scam, and we know the full reach of this brutality, even today. Imagine what will happen with robotics, very precise genetic tools, AI, life extension and nanotechnology. It will be like swatting flies.

It will be very easy to reduce the schandalous differences between poor and rich. And dont give all the money we take from the rich to the poor - just use it to make the world a better place to live in. Invest in education, science, infrastructure, safety, quality of life.

Posted by on 01/14 at 09:40 AM
“I mostly agree, but why would extreme inequality be an existential risk?”

That´s logically correct and in a way - how do you say in english? - hilarious. Civilisation is not about just existing. You can “exist” in a coma. I would guess long before scenarios of extreme inequality due to technological acceleration and capital concentration will play out the correlation between Gini-index and violence will be met with all technological means.

Posted by Siggi Becker on 01/14 at 09:50 AM
Those damned ‘elites’, eh? If only the world were rid of the Rosedales, the Berners-Lees and the Brins and Pages of this world, evil geniuses extracting horrible tolls out of humanity by providing free online worlds, free world-wide-webs and free search engines respectively, and especially if we could only wipe from existence those scheming entrepreneurs like the billionare Warren E. Buffet who is giving away 85% of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Gates easily gives several orders of magnitude more money to charities in a DAY than every person contributing to this discussion will give in a LIFETIME), and ESPECIALLY if, once we have torn down evil empires like Microsoft or Exxon we could erect glorious ivory towers where transhumanists sit on their arses and philosophise about how the ‘Singularity’ is going to turn up and solve all our problems for us at a stroke, why, clearly the world would a better place all round.

If every religion requires a God, one might also say it requires its anti-christ, its Satan. Enter the ‘Elite’, that cackling, coniving and scheming evil genius hell-bent on driving humanity to hell-in-a-handbasket in exchange for short-term financial gain.

Both Singularity and the Elite serve the same purpose. Semi-mythical creations existing primarily so we can pass the buck of responsibility, Looking to IT (the Singularity) to solve our problems for us and referring to THEY (the elite) as the source of OUR problems in the first place;)

Posted by on 02/05 at 02:27 PM
For the record: Discussion of “inequality” and it´s ethical, global, political consequences is not about “those damned (or not so damned) elites”. In regard to this topic the Worldbank seems to be a good start:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTPROGRAMS/EXTPOVRES/EXTDECINEQ/0,,menuPK:1149330~pagePK:64168427~piPK:64168435~theSitePK:1149316,00.html

Posted by siggi on 02/13 at 12:40 PM
Good article, thanks

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