Objective Scarcity Presumptive Hypothesis - a pseudo-conservative view

Actually written JANUARY 22, 2010

1. The Name

It is called “Objective” because it promotes the changing of physical objects in order to relieve misery.

It is called a “Scarcity Presumptive Hypothesis” because it hinges on the presumption that human misery is most fundamentally caused by material scarcity, by resource scarcity, by scarcity of physical gratification objects.

2. Estimation of the Human Condition

So here it is:

Life is miserable for the vast majority of people, for the vast majority of the time.

The fundamental cause of this misery is in our relationship to the material world, (including our own bodies) and not fundamentally caused by our social relations with one another (not caused by any malevolent, elitist conspiracy). This misery is called “fundamental misery” or “original misery” or “first-generation misery”. And again, it’s just random misfortune, not caused by any elitist conspiracy.

Those who suffer this first-generation misery, the miserable majority, cope with their situation by embracing neurotic beliefs. These neurotic beliefs I call “coping neuroses”.

Even the few lucky non-miserable people embrace these neurotic beliefs (coping neuroses) in solidarity with their miserable fellow humans.

Variations among the coping neuroses are often mutually conflicting and threaten one another’s ability to help their adherents cope with misery.

These conflicts generate “flash points” of violence and other instances where people who benefit from the conflicting neuroses inflict more suffering and death upon one another. This is called “second-generation misery”. (Miseries of the second and higher generations are also called “panetitudes”, meaning that people inflict these miseries upon one another. And these are the levels where malevolent, elitist conspiracies often cause their harm.)

This second-generation misery aggravates the level of misery generally, generating more urgent need for the coping neuroses that created the second-generation misery in the first place. This initiates what I call the “vicious cycle of misery”, that generates subsequent generations of misery: third, fourth, fifth, and so on. 

These conflicts (involved in the vicious cycle of misery) cannot be resolved by means of logic or objectivity, the reason for which will now be explained: Each coping neurosis has a method of discrediting the others that can neither be proven nor dis-proven using logic. It works as follows: Every coping neurosis regards all opposing coping neuroses as delusional neuroses who deny the truth. But since all coping neuroses discredit all others by mere variations of this one essential method, every one of them who accuses the others of delusional neuroses is also being accused of that very flaw by the others. This I call the “mutual discrediting dynamic”. Each participant in the mutual discrediting dynamic will interpret the accusations levied against it by the others as mere further expressions of how neurotic the others are. If objective evidence and logic are called in to resolve the matter, each coping neuroses simply re-defines the very criteria for objectivity and logic to serve its own needs to discredit the others. This I call “truth & logic criteria hijacking”. This hijacking is done at the philosophical level, via metaphysical and epistemological sophistry. The result is that logic, reason and objectivity are rendered useless at the task of resolving these misery-generating conflicts. [See also my writings on “The Great Epistemic Quagmire” in this book [blog], which is actually under the title: “Strongest Support for Anti-Realism is ‘Rhf-Gumnlad Hoopiewid’”.]

3. Recommended Actions for Misery Relief

As a consequence of what has so far been explained, the only effective means of relieving the greatest amount of misery is not by means of trying to apply reasoned negotiations toward resolving the conflicts among coping neuroses (that being ultimately futile), but by easing the first generation misery from which the subsequent generations of misery all originally came. 

The one most benevolent method for relieving first generation, original misery seems to consist of making radical adjustments to our relation with the material world, including our bodies. 

And several methods also exist for making these adjustments, but the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis is again concerned with implementing only the most benevolent method(s). The Objective Scarcity Hypothesis regards the most benevolent method as nothing less than wiping out physical disease, disfiguration and hunger. Intense material wants must be satisfied for all. This essentially means making it possible for all of us to “get what we most want”.

Another term for this method is the “Object adjustment method”, a term which is understood in the context of the subject/object relation in desire. Each instance of desire has a subject and an object. Desire can be “resolved” either by adjusting the subject so as to make the subject no longer desire the object, or by adjusting objective reality such that the subject has access to the object in reality, thus gratifying the desire.

The Objective Scarcity Hypothesis rejects subjective methods because they tend to thwart people’s existing meta-level desires to have their intense desires be gratified. Many people don’t want to be persuaded to just give up their desire for physical conditions. It would be malevolent to try forcing them to give up such desires, and callous at best to merely expect them to do so, even “for their own sake”. Thus the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis rejects desire-transcendent, subjective methods such as Zen Buddhism. (Well, “rejects” is too strong a word here. The Objective Scarcity Hypothesis still approves of subjective methods for those it actually helps. The concern here is for those who cannot or will not practice subjective methods.)

Of the various approaches to the objective adjustment method, The Objective Scarcity Hypothesis speculates that the most effective would be to promote the advancement of science and technology toward empowering each individual person with the ability to gratify almost every significant material wish, including the shape and condition of their own bodies. This I call “Individualized super-technology”. Of course there are also malevolent ways of achieving individualized super-technology, which the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis denounces. It rejects for example, creating a totalitarian slave state bent on achieving such a goal. But at present, the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis has no official stance on what organization of society constitutes the most benevolent means of promoting the development of individualized super-technology. A carefully designed combination of socialism and the free market may seem likely the most benevolent option, but the jury is still out on the issue.

4. Extent of Validation

Finally, the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis must seriously consider the possibility that it too may be a form of coping neurosis and therefore invalid. For this reason, proponents of the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis must view the hypothesis itself as tenuous and experimental.

However, the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis does offer two plausible reasons why it is likely not a coping neurosis.

The first reason is that the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis is aware of the very possibility that it might be a coping neurosis. But since coping neuroses have an interest in denying, and denying with a vengeance, the possibility that they are a neurosis, the lack of this vehement denial in the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis makes it plausible that it’s not a neurosis – plausible, but not certain.

Secondly, the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis appears to pass the test of truth-criteria self-consistency, which is a big measure of whether a belief system makes logical sense at all. Passing this “sensibility test” makes it less likely to be a neurosis, since neuroses often dispense with sense in order to provide coping relief from misery.

Explained in a bit more detail, the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis posits a test designed to verify that a belief system is more likely than not a coping neuroses. The test is for whether the belief system has internal consistency, such that it neither contradicts itself nor renders itself logically incoherent. The easiest application of this test is to see whether the belief system’s truth criteria logically support the truth of the belief system itself. A useful test question here would be: Does the belief system hold true according to its own criteria for truth? Another variant of the question would be: Does the belief system still make sense when its truth criteria is used to establish the truth of the belief system itself? Although the ultimate answer to this question is often very difficult to flush out, it can eventually reveal whether the belief system ultimately makes any sense. If it ends up not making sense, then it is likely a neurosis adopted, not for its sense, but for its capacity to help its believers cope with misery. But if it passes this self-consistency test, then it may or may not make ultimate sense for other reasons, and it may or may not be a neurosis for other reasons. Handling these cases may require the development of other tests.

The Objective Scarcity Hypothesis currently adopts the realist theory of truth because it is, so far as tested, logically self-consistent. The realist theory of truth has also matured enough to offer plausible solutions to classic philosophical problems, such as perceptual and conceptual relativity, the analytic/synthetic dichotomy, and the infinite regress of “mental representation theaters within mental representation theaters”.

So again, it is because the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis adopts a logically self-consistent theory of truth that it seems less likely to be a coping neurosis.

But since none of this adds up to certainty on the issue, the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis still regards itself as tenuous and experimental.

And this concludes my description of the Objective Scarcity Hypothesis.

-ADDENDUM JANUARY 24, 2023-

I’ve heard of something similar to this Objective Scarcity Presumptive Hypothesis, something called “Fully Automated Luxury Communism” as developed by Aaron Bastani (often whimsically expanded to “Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism”). And before that, there was Post-Scarcity Anarchism as developed by Murray Bookchin.

Unfortunately, I have not read up on these.

In my ignorance of them, I have no way to tell whether these are actually variants of the Objective Scarcity Presumptive Hypothesis. While they seem to agree that removing objective scarcity is necessary to relieve suffering, I don’t know to what extent they regard objective scarcity as original, or, first-generation scarcity - the scarcity on which the second-generation scarcities of social inequities depend. The criticisms I’ve seen for Bastani’s version seem to hold that scarcities generated by social inequities are not second-generation scarcities, but first-generation, requiring political revolutions to remedy. The criticisms seem to say: “The path to fully Automated Luxury Communism cannot simply be to let the capitalists develop the required technology. The capitalists will never let it actually happen. They want suffering to remain so they can profit from it. So we still need to overthrow capitalism - right now!” See, for example, Leon Thomas (Renegade Cut), “Fully Automated Luxury Star Wars - The Rise of Skywalker” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6JmsBsdPhA , 6:34)

Really? So the idea is that the super-powerful capitalists will someday develop the kind of individualized super-technology capable of liberating everyone from suffering. And on that day they will have a choice between two ways to go:

(1.) Let everybody have the individualized super-technology that they capitalists have finally developed, and thus destroy their status as privileged elites in favor of joining everyone else in one everlasting party paradise of super-abundance for all.

(2.) Withhold the individualized super-technology for no other reason than to continue enjoying their status as privileged elites.

And on that day they will choose number 2, ‘cause they’re malevolent psychopaths who’ve fetishized their elite status or something. And this inherent malevolence is original, creating first-generation suffering, not second-generation.

Well, the critics could be correct. But maybe not. Frankly, I don’t understand their apparent certainty on the matter. And as a matter of curiosity, are these critics the same post-modernists who inherited the Marxist idea that only the pathologically malevolent ever rule the world under capitalism? And is this the idea that Jordan Peterson says they are simply wrong about?

I suspect these critics are projecting the first-generation pathological malevolence they currently see in the capitalist elite to those future capitalist elites who would have that choice I described above. Instinctively, I can see why first-generation objective scarcity would foster such pathological malevolence. And that’s precisely why I’m skeptical that such malevolence would remain when that scarcity has been replaced by super-abundance. First-generation objective scarcity is the only cause of the malevolence, and would dissipate when that scarcity is eradicated. Well, such is my intuition at least. But here I suspect that these critics are also working off nothing more than their intuition. It’s my intuition against theirs. Whoopie!

I don’t know how to call the winner here. If we survive long enough, maybe time will tell.

I’ve occasionally fantasized about benevolent extraterrestrials rescuing humanity by just giving us individualized super technology - giving us super abundance. (They rushed over here ‘cause they worried that we’d nuke ourselves to death before we developed the technology ourselves; and just to relieve our suffering ASAP.) And a sub-fantasy here is that in the first few days of deployment, these extra terrestrials confront the power elite who cling to their power over others out of the psychological inertia of their pathological malevolence. The aliens gather them in one big conference to try explaining how their malevolent power over others is a moot point. 

You are still assuming you need power over others to live your lives of luxury. In the coming days you will see this is no longer so. In fact, your current access to luxury will pale in contrast against the ecstasy you’ll have access to without hurting a single soul. You too, will see the futility of oppressing others. But in the meantime, we will deprive you of your power over others as of this instant. Now go home and watch paradise unfold all around you. And when you’re ready, jump in and revel in ecstasies you’ve been too hurt to imagine were possible. And when you feel embarrassed by your tears of relief and joy, notice that everyone else is joy-crying too, and just let it flow like cathartic cleansing rain

[Cue: XTC - Welcome to the Garden of Earthly Delights]

More of the fantasy has it that some folks just can’t be happy without coercively controlling others, or just plain old hurting others for sport. They’ve tasted the new super-ecstasies, but it’s not enough. For such people the aliens have prepared a virtual reality in which these sadists can believe they are hurting others.

Of course my fantasy doesn’t prove anything other than the fact that I occasionally think about this issue.

As for Jordan Peterson’s weighing in on the issue with some scientific evidence that only some 3% of us are pathologically malevolent: well, two things:

First: 3% could be enough, given this 3% has enough power over others, to execute a malevolent agenda over the rest of us. I have addressed this in another writing in this book where it applies to postmodern pragmatism (VALID PRAGMATICNESS 2) [to be posted in this blog later]. Ya. So this scientific fact may not mean elite capitalists are benevolent - that they would pick option 1 described earlier. 

Second: Peterson confuses me with seemingly contrary information. On the one hand, there’s this scientific fact supposedly suggesting elitist capitalists are likely benevolent most of the time. But on the other hand he cautions us about how any one of us might buy into a malevolent ideology like Hitler’s Nazism - and hurt others big time (perhaps a spin on Arendt’s “Banality of Evil”). And he seems to suggest we have a natural inclination toward obtaining power over others just ‘cause we like it. As a fictional account of this, he points to the writings of one of the famous Russian novelists, Tolstoy or Solzhenitsyn or somebody like that. Ya. So I’m confused.

Again I land at “time will tell”. But of course I think it’s crucial that we find out before it’s too late.

Me the cheerleader: Go humanity! We can do it! We can achieve universal individualized super-technology and live in paradise for as long as we want to live! We can make the singularity, and the singularity can give us that paradise! Things is gonna get better and better! Ray Kurzweil! K. Eric Drexler! Aaron Bastani! Steven Pinker!

But here’s the thing: Even if those otherwise malevolent elitist capitalists would gladly join the egalitarian paradise party of free love, there remains so much that can go wrong prior to the party. I’m with Julia Galef when she cautions the optimism of Steven Pinker with the notion that; as our ability to relieve more suffering increases, so too increases the risks of doing greater harm. I imagine the closer we get to the great everlasting paradise party, the more chance that some malevolent elite types will cancel the party and instead just use that powerful technology to enslave everyone else for sport (or one of such competing camps of these pathological elites deciding to nuke one of both of our hemispheres ‘cause they didn’t get to be the top dogs). Ya. That’s why my escapist fantasy says benevolent aliens just give us that paradise, circumventing all the harm such elites might otherwise dish out.

Hell, even without the malevolence of the elites, the party-bound technology express could just run out of steam, exhausting the resources it needed to reach the party, or creating more problems than it can solve as it chugs along (you know, hidden costs and externals rising up and derailing the train).

The primary fuel of the party-express is, I suspect, AI. And I likewise predict we will soon see the party-express choking on the hidden costs of AI getting out of control. We’ll soon reach a crisis where malevolent people (not necessarily elite) will use AI to hack and sabotage every benevolent use of AI, bringing the party-express to a grinding crawl as the malevolently programmed AI and the benevolently programmed AI divert most of their resources to battling one another. Meanwhile, just one win for the malevolently programmed AI could kill millions and send entire populations into agonizing and lethal poverty (another recipe for nuclear war).

Benevolence will be in a desperate race toward the paradise party, a race to outrun the unforeseen side-effects and malevolence trying to stop it.

Only time will tell.

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