Sentience and fairness
For this blog culture is a layer of programming beyond genetic that can allow humans to go beyond original programming, OP.
There can be dissonance between genetic and cultural programming or mutual reinforcing. However a uniform culture can only reinforce certain segments of the genetic programming of a diverse population.
So what then is the “fair” way to establish a shared reality?
A. Don’t have a diverse population — neither genetically nor culturally
B. Have a diverse population but allow a perceived majority to control the culture which best suits their OP
C. Create multiple re-enforcing cultures and allow free choice of adoption
D. True sentience — create cultures that override instead of re-enforcing OP
Of course these different paths are only approximations, north star directions. Programming is complex and there are many possibilities for genetic and cultural interaction.
Still we see communities and entire nations trying out different variations on these themes. Nor is the free choice of C as fair as we would naively imagine.
Choice comes with a tremendous burden. Complete choice of culture means facing buyers remorse down each day.
The more choice the more time must be spent continually reevaluating cultural fit. At the extreme everyone has their own individual culture and then shared culture is off the table.
The opposite of choice approach, A, is usually dystopian. No matter how similar you start, complete uniformity won’t happen without sacrificing anyone slightly different.
For the same reason approach B has been a disaster. But true sentience, D, is difficult to define and even harder to achieve.
Suppose for instance we imagine a sentient culture that disallows ranking humans. Surely ranking humans is part of original programming and a culture that prevented or dramatically changed it would be an override — right? After all if ranking isn’t built in then how does attraction work?
But it’s also possible that ranking isn’t something that applies to all genetic programming equally. Disallowing human ranking could be suppressing some human’s expression of OP but reinforcing others.
Even assuming though that a disallow ranking culture is true sentience, achieving such a culture is very difficult. Poor Beaver above just wants to feel smart so women should be designated as stupid.
Plus if a remove ranking culture succeeds who will do the work designated for the previously lower ranked? However if ranking humans is something that culture can encourage there should be a way to go the other direction also. Though how far is very uncertain when attempts at modifying or suppressing OP usually fail.
Even then though how would ranking and anti-ranking cultures coexist? Would their be a national divide like the break up of India by the British?
Still whatever the difficulties there is a great cost to allowing OP to remain supreme — it’s insanely boring. Once you catch on to the paucity of our sentience it hardly seems fair.