In a previous post, I talked about the ways in which zero and infinity signaled incipient model failures in physics, specifically in the context of a black hole’s singularity.
How does this relate to politics and public policy? Be wary of predictions and political models that no one will be unhappy with a given state of affairs. Be wary of models that say no one will vote for some particular policy. More subtly, be careful in making predictions about the behavior and priorities of large groups of people you’ve never met, or if none of your news sources are sympathetic to opposing views. You may be missing critical information. Consult broad polls and non-partisan (or differently-biased) news sources to try to understand what you might be missing. Talk to and listen to moderates, nominal allies who seem insufficiently committed, and nominal opponents who have grown frustrated with their party on specific issues or politicians but haven’t generalized those frustrations to the party as a whole.
Also look for situations which are clearly untenable and can’t continue:
The US National Debt is growing rapidly, and many of the politicians who previously voiced concern about the deficit have decided to further increase it. However, tax cuts and increased spending both remain popular. This is unstable because at some point the interest payments on the debt will exceed the government’s ability to pay, and the risk of not getting paid (or of the payments being worthless due to inflation) will exceed investors’ appetite for risk.
Faith in public institutions is dropping. However, politicians and pundits continue to attack scientific results, educational institutions, news stories, electoral outcomes, and judicial rulings with which they disagree. This is untenable because when common trust sinks low enough, society will either fracture into trusting distinct & incompatible institutions, or the institutions will find ways to justify themselves to the public.
Wealth inequality is rising, and is approaching levels last seen in the 1910s. However, the wealthy retain a number of potent political tools which they use to further increase wealth inequality. This is untenable because it exacerbates and is exacerbated by the two previous problems. At some point, those currently accumulating wealth & power will also lose the trust of the public - and be removed via means political and/or violent, or the costs of paying guards and lawyers and accountants and politicians to maintain that wealth will exceed the wealth itself.
The stock market’s price to earnings ratio is high, which historically signals a bubble. Similarly, the ratio of stock market valuations to US GDP is extraordinarily high. These likely signify that the stock market is based on incorrect assumptions. At some point, the political and economic realities will become overwhelming. Either GDP will rapidly rise to catch up, or more likely, the stock market will crash. Damage mitigation efforts by various financial institutions and government agencies seek to bring these metrics into alignment gradually and predictably - but doing so requires some degree of public trust and political will.
Although the “AI singularity” might or might not happen, the pursuit of it is contributing to inflation and increasing climate stress. To some extent, the current state of the stock market is based on assumptions that the AI revolution will pay for itself in the short term. Public backlash is brewing, even before the peak costs hit consumers, and the promised cuts to staffing requirements and increases to corporate profits are unlikely to sit well in combination with rising wealth inequality. It is possible spreading data centers will help to make the power grid’s load more predictable - but that hasn’t happened yet. Achieving such will likely require the businesses that run them and the political entities that permit & regulate them to look beyond the most optimistic projections which are more typically used by corporate & government planners. Good outcomes will also require public trust in corporate and governmental institutions, and require the more-typical partnerships between political and economic powers to give way in favor of some skepticism. Stable, popular outcomes will also require that the benefits be widely distributed in ways that currently seem unlikely: either via explicit government-mediated redistribution, or massive inflation-adjusted decreases in the average person’s cost of living, or by helping people train for and obtain new jobs which replace the ones which are currently slated for replacement by AI tools. If the benefits of AI tools go only to making wealthy business owners wealthier and less accountable to the public, instability will advance.
Climate change is here and is contributing to political and economic uncertainty. Global warming is likely to get significantly worse before it gets better.
The above signal that we are moving beyond the regime in which current political, economic, and electoral models have been tested. Voices on both the left and the right seem to assume such trends are likely to continue, and that there’s nothing to stop “large numbers” from rapidly growing toward infinity. Instead, I fear the current political & economic situation is overdue for a major realignment. While I would welcome decreases in wealth inequality & the public debt, and welcome increases in (earned) trust in education, science, and politicians, there is no guarantee that a sudden realignment would resolve favorably in short order. This is what it means for the economic-political models to fail: we cannot predict the likely outcomes of various policy proposals, and too much may change too quickly to confidently explain which policy change caused which public reaction. The analysis may fail if we stray too close to the institutional singularity, and pundits, voters, and politicians may all fail to understand (or explain) what’s happening, even after it happens. Political, economic, and social stability are all on the line and coupled together.
The best chance to avoid rapid onset of damaging instability is for those with the power to do so to nudge the system toward less-extreme outcomes, and to deliberately build for long-term stability rather than short-term gains:
Politicians should end undeserved attacks on the electoral system.
The Supreme Court should put more weight on the will of the populace and avoid highly-partisan rulings, entanglements with wealthy allies, and the use of unexplained, insufficiently-argued decisions.
Legislators and corporate owners should visibly shift resources to helping the poor & their workers and limiting their own incentives for corruption.
While lefty proposals like Universal Basic Income have never been tried at scale, are controversial, and raise questions about amount, administration, and funding, they would seem to point in the stabilizing direction. They may be useful, but may also lead to problems not visible in the smaller studies done so far. A graduated (“progressive”) income tax has been tried before and helped to stabilize the government and economy. It should be brought back.
Similarly, social safety-net programs like education, health insurance, and assistance with rent & food should be broadened, and politicians & pundits should stop attacking these institutions over “culture war” issues, for cheap clicks, or to signal alignment with the interests of businesses & wealthy individuals. Broader, cheaper education and engaging a broader swath of citizens in voting & political discussion would help to improve public understanding of political actions - and help to ensure that politicians accurately perceive the motivations and incentives for their own constituents.
Businesses, especially those in the tech sector, should open their books to provide more information to investors and the government about current accusations of an accounting shell game.
Climate change is similarly affecting people, and there is much to do to improving resilience while limiting further emissions of greenhouse gasses.
Voters should do more to research the issues that matter to them, to voice their opinions to politicians, businesses, journalists, community organizations, and those that disagree with them.
Mitigating growing instability is going to be a difficult task requiring broad buy-in. It’s possible, but the risks of failure start to look like natural disaster movies, wars, societal collapse and the French Revolution all taking place at the same time. We should try to avoid that.