Evolutionary question: Is Stability dangerous for Humanity as a species?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I'm re-reading Heretics of Dune. In one of the pre-chapter epigraphs Herbert says:

Technology, in common with many other activities, tends toward avoidance of risks by investors. Uncertianty is ruled out if possible. Capital investment follows this rule, since people generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our universe can throw the dice

I like stability I'm terribly risk averse. Is a society made up of people like me doomed as Herbert seems to predict?

Discuss.

[i misspelled destructive]

[Sivin]

I like stability I'm terribly risk averse. Is a society made up of people like me doomed as Herbert seems to predict?

Yes. The most powerful tool at humanity's disposal is ingenuity, and it is hampered by those who constrain scientific and technological improvements on the basis of religious principles and aversion to risk.

Add to that the rampancy of submissive and undesirable genes flourishing due to our dominance over the environment, and humanity is unable to evolve.

[emberling]

What does "stability" mean? Is it individuals' security to live our lives without fear of collapse? Societal maintenance of the status quo?

The status quo guarantees me a certain level of personal instability, as I can be fired or refused employment or evicted at any time due only to who I am. I can be permanently bankrupted by a relatively minor medical complication. I require medicine for my mental health that requires me to pay significant amounts of money regularly, and can be withheld by my doctor for a comparatively minor threat to my physical health. In short, I am living a terribly risk-averse person's nightmare.

In order for this to get better, to become stable - not just for me personally, but for everyone else in a similar situation, everyone else in similar uncertainties - society would need to change radically, to become, temporarily, unstable.

The question, I think, presupposes a condition that does not exist: an extant state of stability. A society made up of "risk-averse people" is not doomed to collapse, but it will probably soon stop being composed of "risk-averse people" as its members discover that they cannot go outside their house or feed their family without taking on significant risk.

[TrueMetis]

We are a species with people that purposely jump out of planes with what is essentially a reinforced sheet in a backpack. We are not, as a species, risk adverse. I think we as a species have enough people who are willing to push the envelop and those who aren't that we are doing fine on that front.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TM, emberlng,

I don't think those are the types of "risks" that Herbert is talking about. He's talking about sociological stagnation. Our government certainly doesn't like "instability" that would facilitate social and eventually technological change.

[Gears of the Beast]

Does the guy ever detail why exactly he thinks this? Because he's being clearly vague and it just sounds like a bunch of bullshit. If we just assume his assertion that 'technology along with other stuff leads to risk averse people' how exactly would that be "destructive"..?

My answer is no.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

GotB,

I really wish Herbert had developed the ideas he talks about in his epigraphs in the Dune series. To the best of my knowledge he never did. The ideas were merely sauce for a wonderful Scifi Universe.

[TrueMetis]

TM, emberlng,

I don't think those are the types of "risks" that Herbert is talking about. He's talking about sociological stagnation. Our government certainly doesn't like "instability" that would facilitate social and eventually technological change.

He claims technology makes people risk adverse, stating it in a general sense. We took one of are most important technological developments and went "hey we should jump out of those." Technology doesn't make people risk adverse. I don't need to look at the rest because I find the premise faulty.

[Altherion]

Read what he is saying again. He is not saying that everyone is risk averse, just that capital investors are. They tend to be risk averse in general, with or without technology (among other reasons, it's why we're more likely to see sequels of all kinds rather than original works of art). It doesn't mean that humanity as a whole is risk averse -- most people are not capital investors, at least not to any extent which matters.

[karaddin]

The idea in the general sense doesn't sound much different to some of Machiavelli's ideas, just updated for a more modern world.

I think there is some point to the criticism of the control of capital and too conservative a view point, but linking it to evolution is awfully questionable. Technology is replacing evolution for the development of our species, and guided change is likely to be a sharper tool than basic survival pressures and blind chance on mutations.

[emberling]

TM, emberlng,

I don't think those are the types of "risks" that Herbert is talking about. He's talking about sociological stagnation. Our government certainly doesn't like "instability" that would facilitate social and eventually technological change.

He's talking about risk-averse capital investment leading to blandness, homogeneity, the vast overprivileging of the majority taste until it becomes the only taste and the destruction of diversity. My point is that this isn't something that stems, as you seem to suggest, from people such as yourself desiring stability; it stems from the nature of capital which, for the most part, encourages risk-averse investment behavior. Our society is organized such that innovation is a great risk, but there are other ways to organize a society. A guaranteed basic income, for instance, would encourage people to do what they love, which for many of us is creating things that are artistically valuable but not commercially viable. Is that a net gain? I don't know. But it strikes me as a fine example of risk-mitigation policy that encourages evolution rather than stagnation.

There's also a sort of media singularity, or maybe anti-singularity, going on that Herbert didn't know about - the Internet and social media have vastly increased the ability for those on the margins to create spaces for themselves where they are centered. The data/information economy has created incentives for major corporate entities - Google, Twitter - to encourage free expression because the more we express, the more data they can harvest and sell. It goes on.

[TrueMetis]

Read what he is saying again. He is not saying that everyone is risk averse, just that capital investors are. They tend to be risk averse in general, with or without technology (among other reasons, it's why we're more likely to see sequels of all kinds rather than original works of art). It doesn't mean that humanity as a whole is risk averse -- most people are not capital investors, at least not to any extent which matters.

Huh your right, whoops. Though now I wonder wtf this has to do with evolution.

[Dicer]

Technology, in common with many other activities, tends toward avoidance of risks by investors. Uncertianty is ruled out if possible. Capital investment follows this rule, since people generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize how distructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our universe can throw the dice.

I have to agree with this to a degree. Not exactly with regard to financial investment but in general.

Yes. The most powerful tool at humanity's disposal is ingenuity

Agree. I have noticed this having done research both in developed countries and developing countries. The advanced technology in developed countries makes it easier to do science. Which can produce fast results and better advancement of both the field and the person. But not having access to that technology makes students in developing countries come up with some of the most ingenious techniques to study something. I have noticed that these students come across as more intelligent and I would say they would be more academically and generally successful if they were to compete with their counterparts in the developed world.

Similarly if there was an apocalypse and total destruction, it's the folks who are not averse to risks in their life who would be most likely to survive. I often think this during floods, hurricanes and quakes and see people huddled in camps and squabbling for food. I would definitely lose out in a situation like that.

In general, I think people more willing to take risks and explore new options tend to more successful. They could adapt more easily to the changing dice thrown by an unpredictable universe. And the ones able to adapt more easily are the ones that can survive and evolve. I am not sure about Herbert's cotext since he is talking about capital investment, but this could be what he is trying to say.

[The King in Black]

Balance my friend. It's all about balance

[Happy Ent]

I like stability I'm terribly risk averse. Is a society made up of people like me doomed as Herbert seems to predict?

A society made up of clones is doomed, no matter what their matrix is.

You want the population to include a reasonable number of crazy people. Most of them will die. One will discover that blue cheese is actually perfectly delicious and doesn’t kill you, for the benefit of everybody else.

The question “what is the optimal ratio of crazy people to stable people” is useless: death takes care of this.

Caveat: When having this debate, remember that currently we’re living in a dysgenic society where evolutionary fitness does not track reproductive fitness very well, so you can’t use insights from evolutionary biology to reason about modern society.

[Wise Fool]

Basic idea is that in a capitalist system societies take the easy way out as a matter of course. But what is easy isn't always what is best, as far as adaptation of man and mankind goes. Good so far really, hard to argue with that. But I can't get over that he misspelled "destructive." Unforgivable, really.

[Happy Ent]

In general, I think people more willing to take risks and explore new options tend to more successful.

No, it’s the other way around: the more successful people tend to be those that are willing to take risks.

(Remember that the least successful people are also those that are willing to take risks.)

[Seli]

...

Caveat: When having this debate, remember that currently we’re living in a dysgenic society where evolutionary fitness does not track reproductive fitness very well, so you can’t use insights from evolutionary biology to reason about modern society.

Caveat: evolutionary fitness is linked directly to reproductive fitness. Claims that that is not the way it ought to be wander into the realm of eugenics.

[Happy Ent]

Claims that that is not the way it ought to be wander into the realm of eugenics.

For the record: I neither said, nor think, that things are not the way they ought to be. (I find nature absolutely abhorrent, so I’d never the naturalistic fallacy.)

[Gears of the Beast]

What Happy Ent said is true though, regardless of whether or not it sounds nice.