06-23-2025, 07:22 AM
Meditations on Moloch is a blog post by Scott Alexander on one of humanity's most fundamental issues. While I won't pretend that this is truly orginal thought (this is AKA the collective action problem), I find his reframing helpful. The post is a well written, thought provoking, eye opening essay about an important issue that is for some reason never mentioned in political discourse, and you should read it.
Because you probably won't, a quick summary: Moloch in ancient mythology is a god of child sacrifice. In this framing, he's a game theory monster of unhealthy competition, where the competition for some prize incentivizes the participants to sacrifice values in order to optimize for winning, triggering a race to the bottom where all participants have to sacrifice all value to optimize for winning or face being outcompeted. Some examples are mentioned in the post, I will repeat two here. First, to illustrate the problem, a society of rats:
The point is that a group of morally upstanding, artistic rats eventually devolves into a society of rats optimized for survival, and there is no way to prevent this unless the entire group cooperates.
Then a second, real world example, which I believe is one of the biggest geopolitical challenges as we face AI replacing humans in the workforce (this time quoting wiki):
What does this have to do with AI? Well, if humans have nothing to offer the economy, how are they going to have any money? Major tax overhaul and UBI will be needed, but then the problem is that business will just move to the country offering them the best tax rates, triggering the race to the lowest regulatory standards.
Taken as a premise, Moloch is a great discussion starter in the realm of political ideology. For one, I think it's a strong argument against libertarianism. I'm not sure if there are any libertarians here but if so, I'm interested to see how you'd respond.
Because you probably won't, a quick summary: Moloch in ancient mythology is a god of child sacrifice. In this framing, he's a game theory monster of unhealthy competition, where the competition for some prize incentivizes the participants to sacrifice values in order to optimize for winning, triggering a race to the bottom where all participants have to sacrifice all value to optimize for winning or face being outcompeted. Some examples are mentioned in the post, I will repeat two here. First, to illustrate the problem, a society of rats:
Quote:Suppose you are one of the first rats introduced onto a pristine island. It is full of yummy plants and you live an idyllic life lounging about, eating, and composing great works of art (you’re one of those rats from The Rats of NIMH).
You live a long life, mate, and have a dozen children. All of them have a dozen children, and so on. In a couple generations, the island has ten thousand rats and has reached its carrying capacity. Now there’s not enough food and space to go around, and a certain percent of each new generation dies in order to keep the population steady at ten thousand.
A certain sect of rats abandons art in order to devote more of their time to scrounging for survival. Each generation, a bit less of this sect dies than members of the mainstream, until after a while, no rat composes any art at all, and any sect of rats who try to bring it back will go extinct within a few generations.
In fact, it’s not just art. Any sect at all that is leaner, meaner, and more survivalist than the mainstream will eventually take over. If one sect of rats altruistically decides to limit its offspring to two per couple in order to decrease overpopulation, that sect will die out, swarmed out of existence by its more numerous enemies. If one sect of rats starts practicing cannibalism, and finds it gives them an advantage over their fellows, it will eventually take over and reach fixation.
If some rat scientists predict that depletion of the island’s nut stores is accelerating at a dangerous rate and they will soon be exhausted completely, a few sects of rats might try to limit their nut consumption to a sustainable level. Those rats will be outcompeted by their more selfish cousins. Eventually the nuts will be exhausted, most of the rats will die off, and the cycle will begin again. Any sect of rats advocating some action to stop the cycle will be outcompeted by their cousins for whom advocating anything is a waste of time that could be used to compete and consume.
The point is that a group of morally upstanding, artistic rats eventually devolves into a society of rats optimized for survival, and there is no way to prevent this unless the entire group cooperates.
Then a second, real world example, which I believe is one of the biggest geopolitical challenges as we face AI replacing humans in the workforce (this time quoting wiki):
Quote:[A race to the bottom describes] government deregulation of the business environment or reduction in corporate tax rates, in order to attract or retain economic activity in their jurisdictions. While this phenomenon can happen between countries as a result of globalization and free trade, it also can occur within individual countries between their sub-jurisdictions (states, localities, cities). It may occur when competition increases between geographic areas over a particular sector of trade and production. The effect and intent of these actions is to lower labor rates, cost of business, or other factors (pensions, environmental protection and other externalities) over which governments can exert control.
This deregulation lowers the cost of production for businesses. Countries/localities with higher labor, environmental standards, or taxes can lose business to countries/localities with less regulation, which in turn makes them want to lower regulations in order to keep firms' production in their jurisdiction, hence driving the race to the lowest regulatory standards.
What does this have to do with AI? Well, if humans have nothing to offer the economy, how are they going to have any money? Major tax overhaul and UBI will be needed, but then the problem is that business will just move to the country offering them the best tax rates, triggering the race to the lowest regulatory standards.
Taken as a premise, Moloch is a great discussion starter in the realm of political ideology. For one, I think it's a strong argument against libertarianism. I'm not sure if there are any libertarians here but if so, I'm interested to see how you'd respond.
