The Dismal Hypothesis

There's a very important question that has remained without answer in contemporary economic/political philosophy since its inception: why is it so underdeveloped?

More specifically, how is it possible that the intellectuals on either side of the spectrum can't find common ground?

In science, arguments are generally short-lived, and resolved. When there's an dispute, it's usually over a relatively minor seeming inconsistency. 

In economics, and in politics, disputes never die.

Perhaps the very simplest way to imagine the context of some of the thoughts of a being with superhuman intelligence is to imagine the conclusions it might draw after having established what is true in regards to economic and political controversy. "Ok, free markets work, now what?" or, for sake of balance, "ok, socialist economies can calculate, now what?" Humanity, even at its highest intellectual level, spends virtually all of its efforts arguing about the undecided basics.

Seemingly, someone of sufficiently high intelligence should be able to resolve the dispute internally, on their own, and start working "higher." Why so little discussion about the "higher?"

There's a few possibilities.

One is that certain traits that happen to correspond to intelligence also happen to deviate one from what are, in reality, truisms about economic and political philosophy. This is possible, perhaps likely, because the conclusions are personal. For example (and I pose this not as a truism, but as an example of what's possible), suppose free market economics really does work. Many of the free market types are usually big on saving money in their personal lives, especially in their later years. Very intelligent people, however, are very likely better off by not saving money at an early age - the age their parents consult them on money-handling practices - because they know, better than the market, that they will be rich in the future. The child, upon realizing this, discounts the parent's advice, and with it discards weight from the conclusion that free market economics works, even though it does.

But can this really account for the whole of it? I pose that virtually *no* discussion is had about anything sufficiently removed from the disputed basics. Perhaps it accounts for some of this lacking, but we need another explanation.

Another is that economic and political philosophy is simply too difficult. Perhaps we don't know enough about one of its core subjects - human behavior being a good candidate - to draw meaningful conclusions with our estimations in any way that accurately depicts reality. I'm inclined to think this is a major contributor (human behavior, indeed, being the mysterious subject).

Another is that people have incentive to lie about the correctness or incorrectness of conclusions in economic and political philosophy. No one benefits by claiming the sun revolves around the Earth (except when they did, namely the Catholic church, and, surprise, they stifled discussion to the contrary), but select farmers and politicians benefit - at the expense of everyone else - from the claim that agricultural subsidies are essential to our society. I think this, too, is a major factor.

Another is that discussions at higher levels *do* go on, but only between select groups. That is, the free marketers discuss with the free marketers, and the socialists with the socialists, because they wish to explore the higher levels outside disputing the basics. There are many possible reasons why we might not hear about these discussions. Higher level conclusions are irrelevant to a public that is undecided on the basics. Half-formulated ideas, given freely to others, may sacrifice one's potential to claim a fully-formulated idea for their own. The founders of higher level conclusions are likely to be much less sure about the truthfulness of those conclusions than of lower level conclusions; if the higher ones happened to be disproved by newfound empirical evidence, the public might discount other conclusions espoused by the same people.

There is another, more dismal possibility.

The Dismal Hypothesis: any mind sufficiently advanced as to consider the implications of economic and political philosophy to a degree sufficiently removed from its basics discovers that life is abhorrent. They discuss it not, because they are immediately driven to kill themselves.

Is the Dismal Hypothesis wrong? Almost certainly. There is no evidence whatsoever that studiers of economic and political philosophy are more likely to commit suicide, as there would need to be; there are no suicide notes of lengthy economic discourse, &c. But was the dismal hypothesis always wrong?

There is a law: the law of mystery minimization. That is, if two things are mysterious, perhaps they have a common source.

It happens there is another mystery that I propose is closely related to this one: the mystery of the wealth creation "hockey stick." It's discussed in a book by economist Dierdre McCloskey, and summarized nicely in a blogpost by my favorite intellectual, son-of-Milton-Friedman, in his recent post: The Puzzle of the Other Hockey Stick.

The basic question concerns the shape of the rate at which humanity produced wealth over the course of its existence. Recently (over the past two centuries), that rate has curved sharply upward. Before then, it remained largely stagnant. So, why was it stagnant?

My answer: The Dismal Hypothesis.

When the political state of society was such that those not born to privilege would live their lives in relative misery - both as compared to us, and, more relevantly, as compared to those born into royalty - perhaps anyone who was inclined to political thinking would discover only that he was damned. He would not aid society toward progression, because hope was nowhere in sight, and people are less willing to aid their ancestors than they are willing to aid themselves. With the death of those who think politically comes also the death of those who "think" in general, and so we lose out on humanity's cream of the crop. As information begins to spread more quickly, it only increases the number who recognize their damnation, and so the typical progress-builds-on-progress becomes counter-acted by a larger and larger portion of thinkers choosing to sleep with the fishes. Thus, hockey stick.

Just a thought I had.