Effective altruism and Xi Jinping Thought

"Besides, even your pants were made in China."

Below I present a cute theorem which that odd Silicon Valley institution Leverage Research, which was at least peripheral to the “effective altruism” (EA) movement, also invented on their own. Or at least, so some claim.

The theorem is that the most effective, impactful altruism is actually world domination. Which, once you think about it for a moment, is obvious. But because I like to kick my competitors when they are down, I want to steal this idea and present it as my own.

In any case, neither Leverage nor anyone else is responsible for the radical corollary that I present below. I am not even sure I am responsible for it, as my conclusion—that the most effective possible altruism is nothing other than Xi Jinping Thought—cannot possibly be correct. But where is the error?

Gray Mirror has been short of classic political content lately—perhaps, over the global Thanksgiving weekend, stuffed with some local creature, sated with shopping, then seized with a Saturday anomie that even college-football cannot slake, in a flash you may perceive my horrendous mistake, and be moved to correct me in the comments. (Subscribers only, please—respect the grift.) Until then, this blog respects Xi Jinping.

Efficient altruism

There are two ways to interpret the literal term “effective altruism.” One is “efficient altruism.” The other is “potent altruism.” The colloquial usage is usually the former, “efficient altruism”—so let’s define that.

Suppose you have some unit of money and/or power. (Money is valuable because it can be converted into power—it can make people do things they don’t otherwise want to do.) You have some altruistic mechanism which converts this resource, money/power, into impact—some good done to the human and/or physical world.

The strategy of “efficient altruism” is to give as much as you can of your own altruistic capacity (which you should maximize, like the EAs who work on Wall Street and live like monks, using their salaries to cure river blindness rather than drink $23 martinis) toward the most efficient possible mechanisms. If you have 10,000 dollars to spend on helping other people, what is the most effective way to spend it?

The answer to this question comes down to the most efficient way to spend a dollar, where efficiency is measured by its positive impact on the lives of human beings. Believers in “efficient altruism” note the remarkable inefficiencies of many popular paths toward altruistic impact.

This is good and healthy, although the cause of this perplexing pattern is seldom examined—why does everything suck? One would think that before inventing a new thing, one would want to know how and why all the old things had come to suck. But we digress.

Potent altruism

So “effective altruism” equals “efficient altruism” times “input resources.” It is clearly important to maximize the first factor, efficiency. But…what if we also maximized…

The realization that starts effective altruism down the road to Xi Jinping Thought is the realization that the most effective way to use power (including money) to help the human race is not to use it to help the human race. Rather, the most effective way to use power (or money) is to use it to obtain more money (or power).

There is certainly a point at which the most effective approach is to spend this power (or money), rather than compounding it. Anywhere near this point, there is no money—only power. A safe assumption is that, until power is absolute, the most effective way to spend power is to spend it on acquiring more power.

Then, given absolute power, the resulting regime can spend all that power on helping all its citizens, behind the veil of global Rawlsian equality—or whatever moral purism the cadres of this new regime prefer.

Ergo, the rational path to effective altruism is the path to world domination. Since impact is the product of power and efficiency, to maximize impact, maximize both power and efficiency. It’s just math, kids.

Efficient altruism asks: what is the most efficient way to spend resources on altruism? Potent altruism asks: what is the most effective way to capture resources for altruism? Ideally, a dollar invested in PA will generate much more than a dollar’s return in EA.

Ergo, the truly effective altruist must become a potent altruist. He must end his futile mosquito-net programs, stop worrying about imaginary AI risk, and focus on the only ethical goal that matters: world domination.

Not domination by him, of course—domination by anyone. That is: any persons or persons both (a) competent for the job, and (b) altruistic (whatever that means).

Because private resources can never approach state resources, there is no altruistic human impact comparable to the installation of an absolute altruistic state.

There does not have to be one global state (very risky). It is a safer rule to confine political action within local borders—creating the absolute altruistic state “within one country,” as someone once put it.

Nerdy programmers in Palo Alto can donate Chinese mosquito nets. Only presidents, strong presidents, in Kigali can drain the Rwandan swamps. The world need not (and should not) be dominated by one entity—everywhere, the world must be dominated. Altruistically, of course. (Strong leadership in America will create indigenous strong leadership across America’s former empire, for reasons we need not get into here.)

Of course, altruistic domination has a failure mode: sadistic domination. Bridges have a failure mode: falling down. A bridge collapse is a nasty affair. We still build bridges.

Since almost anyone will cheerfully admit that “a benevolent dictatorship is the best possible government,” and the difference between good and bad government is, like, huge, it would seem that the problem of engineering a benevolent dictatorship, or any form of altruistic domination, would seem totally as important as, like, fusion reactors.

That is not how it seems to be. Now, while I and others have various interesting ideas about how to go about this engineering work, there is an obvious objection to these ideas of altruistic domination: they have never been tried, and they need to be tested in production. And like fusion reactors, one can certainly imagine them blowing up.

But if you’re concerned about this risk, there’s a simple solution: go with an existing model. Does the world have an existing model of a benevolent dictatorship? It does—and the screen you’re reading this on was made there. Along with everything else.

Here at last we arrive at Xi Jinping Thought. It is not perfect—but it might do. It’s not pretty—but what is? Effective altruism isn’t aesthetic altruism. True—if I lived in China, Xi or his minions would probably try to cancel me. I live here… your point? Besides, even your pants were made in China. No, really. I hate the place too.

Salus populi suprema lex

What is this “altruistic domination,” anyway? “Altruism” is this fake word from the 19th century, leaving any cultured reactionary immediately suspicious.

Let us define domination as power above law—sovereignty—absolute power. While imposing a code of laws is a very useful tool in the implementation of sovereignty,
the medieval principle of the royal prerogative (“the king is above the law”) is crucial. Clearly, whatever altruism is, doing altruism with absolute power gets you more of it.

Since the power of the state is unlimited by definition, there is a slight inaccuracy in this label. By absolute power we mean coherent and concentrated power; we mean that all the resources of the state can be directed unconditionally by a single central authority. Whether this authority is a general with gold epaulets, or a Quaker ladies’ knitting circle, does not matter. Obviously either (or neither) could be altruistic.

As for the meaning of “altruism” at the level of state power, one gay historian I know suggested an old Latin motto: salus populi suprema lex. This is not a Lexus slogan but has been translated, by my gay friend, as “the health of the people is the supreme law.” Since it is the state motto of Missouri, it can’t be racist. If we define salus populi as “altruism” and suprema lex as “domination,” we have defined our quarry—in Latin. Which you may think is gay, but is actually pretty cool.

In the age of Covid, salus has taken on a very literal meaning. Some countries have done a poor job of containing the SARS-Cov-2 virus. Other countries are ruled by Xi Jinping. It’s just one data point, of course…

But the health of a human being is a wider question. It is not just a medical question, but an economic question; not just an economic question, but a spiritual question.

Altruism in power is the desire for the ruled population to thrive. We find that we can easily observe a people and determine whether they are thriving—the question can almost always be answered intuitively by a sufficiently detailed aerial view.

But how can it be measured or defined? Suppose no statistic can capture this quality of thriving, this salus populi—can we still believe in it? Clearly, a genuinely altruistic regime would want nothing else—would allow no other goal to conflict with the general health of the public.

The most radical approach to the salus populi is the acknowledgment that the state is the owner of its people. The citizens are subjects—humans in the regime’s inventory.

While this sounds bad, it has a silver lining: if we equate the value of a human with the salus of that same human, the salus populi becomes the regime’s business incentive. And… we actually kind of do know how to align a business with its business incentive.

Since the population is the asset of the state, maintaining and upgrading the people becomes an unremarkable profit motive, not a romantic higher purpose. And large organizations are most efficiently led by profit motives—so long as the incentive of profit and the altruistic public interest are aligned.

Unfortunately, looked at from certain perspective, this interpretation of citizenship is equivalent to—state slavery. (Athens mined its silver that way; the USSR, its gold.) So… it’s very controversial and has never been tried. Let’s stick with Xi Jinping Thought. Which is neither. Didn’t they used to say: a billion Chinamen can’t be wrong?

Engineering the machine

Our engineering objective is a stable system of absolute domination whose incentives are aligned with the health—medical, economic and spiritual—of the people. So long as it obeys these incentives, it achieves altruistic domination.

There are a number of ways to skin this paradoxical cat. Like designing fusion reactors, it is inherently hard, but not inherently impossible. But why innovate? Innovation is scary. Innovation is weird. Xi Jinping Thought is neither.

An excellent introduction to the mind of Chairman Xi is his famous speech on the central aspect of Xi Jinping Thought: common prosperity. As the Chairman puts it:

The common prosperity we are talking about is the common prosperity of all people. It is the prosperity of all people in their material and spiritual lives. Common prosperity does not mean prosperity for a few, nor is it neat and tidy egalitarianism.

We easily recognize the salus populi, Asian style. Obviously, the Celestial Empire is no stranger to practical political science.

Of course, we are all red-blooded Americans here. Let’s work through some of the vile yellow propaganda we expect from this evil emperor of the east. His first point:

Encourage industriousness and innovation as means to prosperity. A happy life is earned through struggle, and common prosperity requires industriousness and wisdom.

Incredibly based. When was the last time you heard that from an American politician? “A happy life is earned through struggle.” Neither Mishima nor Neruda could disagree.

We must persist in safeguarding and improving people’s livelihoods in the course of development, take the promotion of high-quality development as the top priority, create more inclusive and equitable conditions for people to improve their education levels and development capabilities, enhance the human capital of the entire society and professional skills, improve the people’s ability to find employment and start businesses, and strengthen their capability to get rich. We must prevent social stratification, open up channels for upward mobility, create opportunities for more people to become rich, form a development environment with participation from everyone, and avoid “involution” and “lying flat”.

This is typical communist talk. (I hate it when he uses sinister words like “inclusive,” but remember: Chairman Xi is speaking Chinese.) I am not quite sure what “lying flat” means—but I can guess that it has something to do with being a NEET. The Chairman, a man who knows how a happy life is earned, has no pity for the NEET.

While we should allow some people to get rich first, it should be emphasized that those who become rich first lead and assist those who are not yet rich. We shall focus on encouraging industriousness, legal business operations, and those leaders of wealth acquisition who dare to pioneer. Getting rich by underhand means shall not be supported, and those who break the law and violate regulations must be dealt with according to the law.

More of this communist propaganda. They want your women! Do not listen!

We must also see that China’s level of development is still far from that of developed countries. We must plan, and navigate between needs and possibilities. We must base the protection and improvement of the livelihood of the people on economic development and financial sustainability rather than unrealistic pursuits and expectations, and promises that cannot be fulfilled.

Imagine Washington, DC, but without “unrealistic pursuits and expectations.” Will it bring your mind to a place which is still, empty and beautiful? A quiet, happy place?

The government cannot take care of everything. Its focus should be on strengthening the construction of people’s livelihood guarantees that are fundamental and universal.

If you disagree with this—you definitely disagree with Xi Jinping Thought.

Even if we reach a higher level of development and acquire stronger financial resources in the future, we should not set aims that are excessively high, and/or provide excessive guarantees. We must resolutely prevent ourselves from falling into the trap of nurturing lazy people through “welfarism.”

Welfarism! The Chairman obviously has yet to hear the good news about UBI, which has none of these problems—as our super-scientific studies have shown.

Adhere to a gradual and orderly process. Common prosperity is a long-term goal that requires a process and cannot be achieved overnight. We must fully consider the long-term, arduous and complex nature of the enterprise. We must do it well; it can neither wait nor be rushed.

Again, we’ve learned to expect this kind of revolutionary madness out of Red China.

Some developed countries have been industrializing for hundreds of years, but due to their social systems, they have not solved the problem of common prosperity and, in fact, the problem of disparity between the rich and the poor has worsened. We need to be patient, and progress step-by-step in a firm and steady manner as to improve actual effectiveness.

Who can still disagree that Xi Jinping Thought is effective altruism in practice?

Second, we must focus efforts on expanding the size of the middle-income groups. We must seize what is important and implement precise policies to push low-income earners into the middle-income bracket.

Graduates from higher education institutions are promising potential members of the middle-income groups. We must improve the quality of higher education, make sure [students] acquire specializations and learn what is useful, and help them adapt to the needs of social development as soon as possible.

Skilled workers are also an important part of the middle-income groups. We should increase efforts to improve the training of skilled talent, raise the salary of skilled workers, and attract more highly qualified talent to join the ranks of skilled workers.

Owners of small and medium-sized enterprises and sole proprietors are an important group of people who have become rich through entrepreneurship. We must improve the business environment for them, reduce their burden of taxes and fees, and provide them with more market-based financial services. This is to help them run their businesses in a stable manner and continue to increase their income.

Migrant workers [moving from rural] to urban areas are an important source for the middle-income groups. We must deepen the reform of the household registration system, and resolve issues such as agricultural labour transfer [both between agricultural sectors and out of agriculture to other sectors], accompanying migration [of migrant worker families], education for children of migrant workers, etc. This is so that migrant workers can enter the city with peace of mind and find stable employment.

The salaries of civil servants, especially front-line civil servants at the grassroots level, and grassroots workers in state-owned enterprises and institutions, shall be appropriately increased.

It’s amazing how caring a regime can be once it’s smashed the power of the landlords and nobles. One almost senses that the Chairman knows what types of people actually live in his country, and is looking out for all of them. (Unless they are “lying flat.”)

How does the CCP regime actually work? For all important positions in the state, and increasingly for important jobs in the private sector, there are two systems of rank. In these jobs you have a boss who tells you what to do in the usual way; your eligibility for the position, though, is a function of your rank as a CCP cadre.

This ensures that all positions of importance and authority are under Party discipline. So whoever controls the Chinese Communist Party controls the nation of China. Who controls the Chinese Communist Party? Chairman Xi Jinping, of course. This is the very model of the modern monarchy—and it seems to, um, make all our stuff. (Critics of monarchism might try to go a week without using anything made in a monarchy.)

The future of effective altruism: communism

Effective altruists in America, therefore, must try to emulate this structure. They will obviously become communists, because communism is and has always been cool, and there is no one you have to license the brand from.

(In fact, if they do well, Chairman Xi might even endorse them. Or subsidize them? But I think not—the Chairman is the servant of the Chinese people, and a strong America is not in the interest of the Chinese people.)

As communists, newly recharged by the sheer refreshing vigor of the word, our effective altruists will form a New Communist Party under the Leninist principle of “democratic centralism,” in which leadership decisions are binding on all Party members.

Needless to say, membership and cadre rank in this Party are earned. Its members are spread across all walks of life—and are increasingly useful, even necessary, in finding professional opportunities and other life connections. They form a high-trust society of top-quality people. And since the modern regime is global, so is the Party.

Like classic revolutionary communist parties, the Party is a secret organization with a cellular structure. When Party members meet online, they use cryptonyms. When they meet in person, they use nicknames on nametags—always choosing a public place, and leaving their phones at home. It should never be possible to “roll up the network.”

But because the mission of the Party is not to use power, but to gain power, the world does not experience it as a hostile, aggressive organism. The Party does not act; this would not be effective altruism, as it would not be potent altruism. Its only goal is to be everywhere and know everything. Harmlessness is at least half its defense strategy.

The Party, operating on the principle of democratic centralism, has a headquarters funded by Party dues. The purpose of this headquarters is the essence of government: intelligence. Its goal is to simply know the truth about reality, past and present. Again, the Party does not do anything.

In this task it has two great assets: a professional staff of analysts, paid, part-time and/or volunteer, all of course cadres under Party discipline; and anonymized reports from Party members across many walks of life (but especially the higher walks).

Its media arm synthesizes this intelligence information into a narrative through which the Party understands the world. Its members can become comfortable in the faith that the Party is never wrong—because the Party is, in fact, never wrong.

The Party in power

The final stage of the Party, in which it finally becomes effective in the literal sense, is the stage in which it takes power.

Not that the Party seizes power. This would be action. The Party does not act. Rather, someone seizes power—then, to keep it, relies on the resources of the Party. Which can supply any new regime with the two essentials of power: personnel and intelligence.

Of course, as the exclusive supplier of these goods, the Party becomes the regime—and, unless the leadership of Party and regime merges, a conflict is inevitable. The structure of any such merger cannot be foretold—but its result is a one-party state, very like China today.

The weakness of China

Is this a perfect outcome? It isn’t. Again, the Chinese model is not perfect—just proven. There are probably better designs, just none that have been tested.

The Chinese system of government has one great weakness: it does not know how to be cool. It does not have, and cannot create, anything like a true cultural aristocracy. For example, China does not have a bohemian artistic and intellectual elite.

Unfortunately, this predicts that in the long run China will fall victim to Western political fashions, and be destroyed. It is impossible to suppress the phenomenon of aristocracy, but especially impossible when contagion from a foreign aristocracy cannot be suppressed. For instance, by sending its best students to Western colleges, China is putting itself at great cultural risk.

The fundamental cause of this risk is China’s lack of indigenous cultural aristocracies that can compete, in the game of high fashion, against the West. For instance, there are almost no Chinese fashions that spread to the West—Japan and even Korea are far ahead in this race—but even in Japan and Korea, most transmission is the other way.

Modern China exists because Mao created a dictatorship so strong that, when Deng inherited it, he found it could contain the economic aristocracy of capitalism. It was okay to get rich in China; the Party was strong, and rich men did not threaten it. The USSR was never strong enough to tolerate the imperium in imperio of capitalism—the secondary statelike structures of private businesses—so it died for economic reasons.

But politically containing a cultural aristocracy, without suppressing it (thus creating a dangerous vacuum) is an even harder problem. China has no answer—nobody has an answer. It has never been done. Which doesn’t mean it can’t be done…

Any regime is unstable if it does not contain and control all three forms of political power: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. A regime built on the Chinese model contains monarchy and controls democracy; it has no answer for aristocracy, other than to suppress it into some bourgeois democratic pattern.

This worked in China because of its tremendous 20th-century aristocide; nothing similar has happened, or of course should happen, in the West. Yet the West’s aristocracy is eating it alive. If only they could all convert to Xi Jinping Thought…