“Bootstrapping to viatopia” by William_MacAskill
Description
Like many people, I have quite a lot of stuff that I've written that exists only in googledoc form. In writing a comment response to Wei Dai, I wanted to point to a concept that I realised I hadn't published. So I thought I should practice what I preach, and put the idea out as a post. But warning — the level of polish is likely a lot lower than other things I might write.
Lock-in escape velocity
One dynamic that makes long-term path-dependence more likely to occur in the near future is lock-in escape velocity: that short periods of entrenchment can turn into longer periods of entrenchment.
Suppose that a one-world government is formed, and the leaders of that government are able to entrench their power for a comparatively short period of time, so they very probably stay in power for 10 years. But, in that time, they [...]
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Outline:
(00:32 ) Lock-in escape velocity
(02:11 ) Bootstrapping to viatopia
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First published:
October 13th, 2025
Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sExa4mvRwZCQiZJNZ/bootstrapping-to-viatopia
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
United States
