As illustrated by the governmental responses to Covid, we are moving in the wrong direction: away from freedom and toward centralized global authoritarianism. Our “liberal democracy” is largely fictional, propagandized by our Ruling Elites to provide the illusion of popular sovereignty. Even the West (or the Greater American Empire) has little more freedom than the “democracy” in Hong Kong, where citizens vote on a selection of candidates approved by the Party.
Francis Fukuyama would be a great person to interview on this question. Maybe he’d say something like liberal democracy is the apotheosis of our political progress and now it’s a matter of incremental reform and defending it from the bored forces of illiberalism and authoritarianism.
Personally I believe we need to progress ethically as a species before we make significantly more political progress. And by ethically I mean more concerned with the well-being of our fellow man, the planet and the other animals we share it with.
If we see the death of the fossil fuel age (I'm very optimistic on this) we will see the death of the last theocratic monarchies in the world. For all those who think the Arabs will manage to get a functioning economy after the oil age is delusional. I would be surprised if even Dubai remains a rich place in the 2050s.
I'm optimistic that there will free movement of peoples in Asia after the 2040s excluding a few basketcaes like Pakistan and Myanmar.
I would argue that the peaceful transition of power in China from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping represents a significant achievement. While it may not be comparable to the collapse of communism, the CCP has successfully avoided the 'Tullock curse,' which is noteworthy.
However, with Xi in power, the likelihood of the next transfer of leadership occurring without some form of civil unrest or collapse seems lower than before.
Javier Milei is a candidate. Hasn't happened yet, but if he is successful could have worldwide secondary effects. If COVID taught us anything, it's that Democratic pressures matter more than the individuals who you place in the system. If Milei creates a new winning system it will be copied everywhere.
I think you are largely correct; if Milei is successful and Argentina pulls itself up and back into the realms of economic prosperity it enjoyed in its relatively recent past (within 200 years or so) that will be a very strong example for others to follow. Venezuela's experiences helped put some people off the state socialism wagon as well, although no so much as one would hope, but big successes always seem to convince people more than abject failures. A series of Milei style leaders creating small economic powerhouses out of countries struggling with parasitic governance could really be quite a thing.
The single greatest change in the past 400 years - far far greater than the Copernican revolution which was part of what initiated the modern scientific method - is the exponentially increasing numbers of internationally renowned scientists (including Nobel Prize winners) who have come to the same conclusion as most of the early 20th century quantum physicists:
Nothing can be understood unless Consciousness (not “human” or “animal” but what is known as “Chit” in Sanskrit - the all pervading substance and foundation of all that is) is seen as essential.
All of the other nominations for most significant change are subsets of this realization. It will be seen, in a century or two, as one of the few major occurrences in the past five thousand years, as big as what Karl Jaspers referred to as the Axial Age of 500 BC.
It looked like it, back i 1970 when I first began tracking this, that this shift would occur some time toward the end of the 21st century, but in the past 15-20 years (dating at least from the December 1995 publication of David Chalmers’ “The Hard Problem of Consciousness” in Scientific American) there has been a stunningly rapid increase in renowned scientists coming to this conclusion.
This will change everything, from politics and economics to art, science, education, healthcare - everything.
my candidature for potential political advance is improvement in democratic structure.
that is. democracies better designed to maximize agent-principal compatibility, representation of the losers etc.
parliamentary systems.
ranked choice voting.
abolishing the primary disaster: parties select more electable (usually more median voter oriented, more capable etc), and voters can choose between attractive options rather than less horrible optimal imposed by the extremists/populist primary participants.
If individuals gain more respect for each other’s rights without a change in law such that people settle more disputes outside of court, would that be political progress?
Growth in availability of and access to information via the Internet. Now waning with growing censorship. But explosive in every way over the past 20-30 years. Even includes telephony, television - everything. Still stands as ENORMOUS positive - well over 2%.
Under the surface though, politics of course is the scene, the trenches if you will, of values conflicts that lead to those seismic shifts. I would argue that Biden's passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, finally setting the US, historically the world's largest polluter and the home of the fossil fuel industry and its influence peddling machinery, on a course correction in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, mya prove to be as significant globally and for civilization as the fall of the Iron Curtain.
I think the best shot at real politically progress is the ground work being laid for futarchy. I'm not super confident that futarchy will really be a major politically system in 100 years or if it will actually work better than democracy, but if it is and does, people will look back on this period as its earliest beginnings.
A political system Robin Hanson where putting your money where your mouth is and betting on the facts, so people are incentivized to be actually correct, is built in.
Could be worse! If politics merely stays the same forever while technology keeps improving, that seems like it could be a pretty great outcome.
As illustrated by the governmental responses to Covid, we are moving in the wrong direction: away from freedom and toward centralized global authoritarianism. Our “liberal democracy” is largely fictional, propagandized by our Ruling Elites to provide the illusion of popular sovereignty. Even the West (or the Greater American Empire) has little more freedom than the “democracy” in Hong Kong, where citizens vote on a selection of candidates approved by the Party.
Francis Fukuyama would be a great person to interview on this question. Maybe he’d say something like liberal democracy is the apotheosis of our political progress and now it’s a matter of incremental reform and defending it from the bored forces of illiberalism and authoritarianism.
Personally I believe we need to progress ethically as a species before we make significantly more political progress. And by ethically I mean more concerned with the well-being of our fellow man, the planet and the other animals we share it with.
If we see the death of the fossil fuel age (I'm very optimistic on this) we will see the death of the last theocratic monarchies in the world. For all those who think the Arabs will manage to get a functioning economy after the oil age is delusional. I would be surprised if even Dubai remains a rich place in the 2050s.
I'm optimistic that there will free movement of peoples in Asia after the 2040s excluding a few basketcaes like Pakistan and Myanmar.
I would argue that the peaceful transition of power in China from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping represents a significant achievement. While it may not be comparable to the collapse of communism, the CCP has successfully avoided the 'Tullock curse,' which is noteworthy.
However, with Xi in power, the likelihood of the next transfer of leadership occurring without some form of civil unrest or collapse seems lower than before.
Javier Milei is a candidate. Hasn't happened yet, but if he is successful could have worldwide secondary effects. If COVID taught us anything, it's that Democratic pressures matter more than the individuals who you place in the system. If Milei creates a new winning system it will be copied everywhere.
I think you are largely correct; if Milei is successful and Argentina pulls itself up and back into the realms of economic prosperity it enjoyed in its relatively recent past (within 200 years or so) that will be a very strong example for others to follow. Venezuela's experiences helped put some people off the state socialism wagon as well, although no so much as one would hope, but big successes always seem to convince people more than abject failures. A series of Milei style leaders creating small economic powerhouses out of countries struggling with parasitic governance could really be quite a thing.
The single greatest change in the past 400 years - far far greater than the Copernican revolution which was part of what initiated the modern scientific method - is the exponentially increasing numbers of internationally renowned scientists (including Nobel Prize winners) who have come to the same conclusion as most of the early 20th century quantum physicists:
Nothing can be understood unless Consciousness (not “human” or “animal” but what is known as “Chit” in Sanskrit - the all pervading substance and foundation of all that is) is seen as essential.
All of the other nominations for most significant change are subsets of this realization. It will be seen, in a century or two, as one of the few major occurrences in the past five thousand years, as big as what Karl Jaspers referred to as the Axial Age of 500 BC.
It looked like it, back i 1970 when I first began tracking this, that this shift would occur some time toward the end of the 21st century, but in the past 15-20 years (dating at least from the December 1995 publication of David Chalmers’ “The Hard Problem of Consciousness” in Scientific American) there has been a stunningly rapid increase in renowned scientists coming to this conclusion.
This will change everything, from politics and economics to art, science, education, healthcare - everything.
my candidature for potential political advance is improvement in democratic structure.
that is. democracies better designed to maximize agent-principal compatibility, representation of the losers etc.
parliamentary systems.
ranked choice voting.
abolishing the primary disaster: parties select more electable (usually more median voter oriented, more capable etc), and voters can choose between attractive options rather than less horrible optimal imposed by the extremists/populist primary participants.
Biden v. Trump??? Has to be the ghastliest choice of my lifetime. And I'm not young.
yep. Trump was unabled by the primary 100%
Biden is there due to primary system. party elites cannot replace him, because they fear whoever get selected is worse
Have any of these made any significant progress during the period in question?
How about the gradual end of China’s One Child Policy?
If individuals gain more respect for each other’s rights without a change in law such that people settle more disputes outside of court, would that be political progress?
Growth in availability of and access to information via the Internet. Now waning with growing censorship. But explosive in every way over the past 20-30 years. Even includes telephony, television - everything. Still stands as ENORMOUS positive - well over 2%.
There’s been a major positive change to gay rights across the western world
Under the surface though, politics of course is the scene, the trenches if you will, of values conflicts that lead to those seismic shifts. I would argue that Biden's passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, finally setting the US, historically the world's largest polluter and the home of the fossil fuel industry and its influence peddling machinery, on a course correction in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, mya prove to be as significant globally and for civilization as the fall of the Iron Curtain.
"collapse of Communism"?
A terrible and particularly inefficient regime eventually gave up the struggle to continue. But real large-scale communism is a non-starter: https://jclester.substack.com/p/communism-and-libertarianism
A modern classic on the impossibility of communism is D. R. Steele's from Marx to Mises.
I think the best shot at real politically progress is the ground work being laid for futarchy. I'm not super confident that futarchy will really be a major politically system in 100 years or if it will actually work better than democracy, but if it is and does, people will look back on this period as its earliest beginnings.
What is futarchy?
https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html
A political system Robin Hanson where putting your money where your mouth is and betting on the facts, so people are incentivized to be actually correct, is built in.