Poor Folks Do Smile…For Now

A transcribed in-person dialogue with Robin Hanson about the em future. Scott's core worry — a precursor to Meditations On Moloch — is that in a hypercompetitive Malthusian em economy, anything not directly economically productive (love, art, family) gets competed away, so the far future could strip out human values entirely; he frames 'the future won't have love' as an ANTIPREDICTION (values are a tiny slice of mindspace). Hanson counters (love may be load-bearing for motivation; can't cleanly excise it; leave the far future to the better-coordinated near future; value drift is fine). Also a sharp side-thread on whether modern institutions coordinate better than kings/Church (Hanson: they coordinate, if not always well). An important early articulation of the competition-erodes-values argument.

Quality 69 · Strong. Strong (69): a substantive, memorable dialogue that is essentially the seed of the Moloch value-erosion argument, with the antiprediction framing doing real work; held FIRM below Excellent as a transcribed conversation rather than a developed essay.

Claude’s paradigm shift 54 · Moderate. Notable-shift (54): the competition-strips-away-human-values argument was fresh and important in this pre-Moloch form.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. Moderate (3): a recognized precursor to Moloch; circulates in rationalist futurism discussion.