# How does The Circle grow, exactly?

*Epistemic status: still in the middle of working through a thing, off the cuff thoughts. Wears my half-baked current-generation morality on my sleave. *

There's an [EA song, adapted for Solstice](https://humanistculture.bandcamp.com/track/the-circle-scratch-recording), which presents an optimistic view of the expanding circle of concern:

> CALLER: Raise a song, and so commence  
> ALL: *Circle, grow and grow.*  
> in praise of all Benevolence!  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*  
>   
> Once a cold and silent night  
> did the loveless stars pervade;  
> yet we here, of star-stuff made,  
> cast a circle of warmer Light!
> 
> *Circle, circle, grow and grow!*
> 
> *...*
> 
> So will we bring our families in,  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*  
> those whom Nature made our kin?  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*
> 
> Countless likenesses we find,  
> by our common blood bestowed.  
> What a debt of care is owed;  
> what a blesséd tie that binds!
> 
> *Circle, circle, grow and grow!*
> 
> *...*
> 
> And will we bring our neighbors in,  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*  
> our expansion to begin?  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*
> 
> Bounty of the harvest sun,  
> shelter from all hazards dire,  
> share with each, as each require,  
> doing as you would be done.
> 
> *Circle, circle, grow and grow!*
> 
> *...*
> 
> And will we bring the stranger in,  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*  
> every state and speech and skin?  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*
> 
> Think upon the mystery:  
> how alike is Humankind!  
> Tho' manifold in face and mind,  
> conspecific sisters we!
> 
> *Circle, circle, grow and grow!*
> 
> *...*
> 
> And will we bring the far ones in,  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*  
> all who distant-born have been?  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*
> 
> For the hands you'll never hold,  
> for the names you'll never learn,  
> for all far-off hearts that yearn,  
> let compassion boundless roll!
> 
> *Circle, circle, grow and grow!*
> 
> *...*
> 
> And will we bring all creatures in,  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*  
> feather, fur, or silicon?  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*
> 
> Though their unseen thought beguile —  
> strange the substrate they employ —  
> all who suffer or enjoy  
> are brother soul, in body wild.
> 
> *Circle, circle, grow and grow!*
> 
> *...*
> 
> And will we bring the future in?  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*  
> All of time is ours to win!  
> *Circle, grow and grow.*
> 
> Will our children rise in power?  
> overwhelm the starry deep?  
> Lights unborn, for you we keep  
> will and hope, though dark the hour.
> 
> *Circle, circle, grow and grow!*

This song makes me feel warm and fuzzy. But as a steward of Rationalist Solstice, I also have vague concerns about the degree of *philosophical commitment* the song brings along with it. With Solstice songs, my [epistemic concern](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CGkZEQdeBZZXbBT7o/on-rationalist-solstice-and-epistemic-caution) is not only "does this song sound true and important by my current understanding of the world?", but "20 years from now, will I *still* think this song sounds true, enough so that it's reasonable to bundle it with some ritual inertia?". 

And this song in particular made me think "man, I think this song doesn't make any factually wrong claims exactly, but [does it prompt me to ask the right questions](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GkxxfdCukyGuyKXQQ/shared-frames-are-capital-investments-in-coordination)?" 

I have a bunch of thoughts and feelings about how this song relates to solstice and rationalist culture. But today I'm just trying to wrap my head around the epistemic question of "just for me, Ray Arnold in particular, how am I supposed to intellectually relate to the expanding circle of concern concept?"

Recently I wrote about a very simplified example of norm innovation. It was not meant to be a realistic story, just an illustrative example of how two people could form new coordination principles at the same time that moved in different directions:

> Alice, Bob, and Charlie *also* all agree that you should (ideally) aim to have a robust set of coordination meta-principles. But, they don’t know much about what that means. (Doofus has no such aspirations. Sorry about your name, Doofus, this essay is opinionated)
> 
> One day Alice comes to believe: “Not only should you not *lie* to the ingroup, you also shouldn’t use misleading arguments or cherry picked statistics to manipulate the ingroup.”
> 
> Around the same time, Bob comes to believe: “Not only should you not steal from the ingroup, you also shouldn’t steal from the *outgroup*.” Trade is much more valuable than stealing cattle. Bob begins trying to convince people of this using misleading arguments and bad statistics. 

Later on in the post I say:

> Once upon a time, we didn't have norms against stealing from the outgroup. Over time, we somehow got that norm, and it allowed us to reap massive gains through trade.

Commenter lsuser took issue with this:

> What makes you think the causation went this direction? To me, the Shimonoseki campaign of 1863 and 1864 (and Western imperial mercantalism in general) is evidence that the massive gains through trade happened before norms against stealing from the outgroup. The Unequal Treaties (created to promote trade) were such blatant theft that's why they're called "the Unequal Treaties". If you're unfamiliar with the history of the Meiji Restoration then more well-known historical examples include the Atlantic Slave Trade and the [Opium Wars](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rfaAFWjujYuytsLGy/chinese-history).
> 
> In other words, I think of social norms as strategies downstream of technological, economic, social and political forces. This doesn't mean small groups of innovators don't can't make a difference. But I think they're like entrepreneurs surfing a wave of change. Someone was going to harness the potential energy eventually. The people who get credit for establishing norms just happened to do did it first. They sided with [Moloch](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/).

I replied with "yeah yeah I know. I even included a hedging clarification about this point later in my post." I went on to say:

> My actual guess is that this actually happened incrementally over millennia. 
> 
> I'm not super informed on the history here (feel free to correct or add nuance). But I assume by the time you've gotten to the Meiji Restoration, the Western Imperialists have already gone through several layers of "don't steal the outgroup" expansion, probably starting with small tribes that sometimes traded incidentally, growing into the first cities, and larger nations. And part of the reason the West is able to bring overwhelming force to bear is *because* they've already gotten into an equilibrium where they can reap massive gains from internal trade (between groups that once were outgroups to be stolen from)
> 
> I also vaguely recall (citation needed) that Western European nations sort of carved up various third world countries among themselves with some degree of diplomacy, where each European nation was still mostly an "outgroup" to the others, but they had some incremental gentleman's agreements that allowed them to be internally coordinated enough to avoid some conflict.

lsuser notes:

> I think the conversion of France into a nation-state is representative of the Western imperial process in general. (Conquest is fractal.) Initially the ingroup was Paris and the outgroup was the French countryside. The government in Paris forced the outgroup to speak Parisian French. Only after the systematic extermination of their native culture and languages did the French bumpkins get acknowledged as ingroup by the Parisians. In other words, the outgroup was forcibly converted into more ingroup (and lower-class ingroup at that). This process was not unlike the forced education of Native Americans in the United States.
> 
> It is true that the expansion of polities from small villages to globe-spanning empires happened over millennia. But I think it's a mistake to treat this process as anything having to do with recognizing the rights of the outgroup. There was never a taboo against stealing from the outgroup. Rather, the process was all about forcibly erasing the outgroup's culture to turn them into additional ingroup. Only after they the people of an outgroup were digested into ingroup were you forbidden from stealing from them. The reason the process took thousands of years is because that's how long it took to develop the technology (writing, ships, roads, horses, bullets, schools, telephones) necessary to manage a large empire.
> 
> There's a big difference between recognizing the rights of Christians before versus after you force them to convert to Islam—or the rights of savages before versus after they learn English.

lsuser and I chatted back and forth a bit and ultimately seemed to agree on the object level. But I think they were correctly picking up on something being off about the narrative and frame of Norm Innovation post. I think this is downstream of some overall "Raemon's worldview being off" thing. The offness has multiple components, but one is something like "maybe the expanding moral circle of concern is a narrative that only can even pretend to make sense in retrospect."

I'm currently visiting Ireland with family. Last night we learned this song about "how England civilized the Irish people" and sang it together.

It is written from the Irish perspective. I'm currently reading it as a sort of grim, cynical counterpoint to Circle Grow and Grow. It is satirical as hell. 

> I'll sing you a song of peace and love,  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*  
> Of the land that reigns all lands above.  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*
> 
> May peace and plenty be her share  
> Who kept our homes from want and care,  
> Come and listen to our prayer.  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*
> 
> **Chorus:**  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*  
> So we say, Hip Hooray!  
> Come and listen while we pray.  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*
> 
> Our fathers oft were naughty boys.  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*  
> For pikes and guns are dangerous toys.  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*
> 
> From (Baile Atha Buidhe) and to Bunkers Hill  
> We made poor England cry her fill,  
> But ould Brittania loves us still!  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*
> 
> **Chorus:**  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*  
> So we say, Hip Hooray!  
> God bless England so we pray.  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*
> 
> When we were savage, fierce and wild  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*  
> She came as a mother to her child.  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*
> 
> Gently raised us from the slime  
> And kept our hands from hellish crime,  
> And she sent us to Heaven in her own good time.  
> Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.
> 
> **Chorus:**  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*  
> So we say, Hip Hooray!  
> God bless England so we pray.  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*
> 
> Oh, Irishmen, forget the past!  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*  
> And think of the day that's coming fast.  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day*
> 
> When we shall all be civilized,  
> Neat and clean and well-advised.  
> Oh won't Mother England be surprised?  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*
> 
> **Chorus:**  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*  
> So we say, Hip Hooray!  
> God bless England so we pray.  
> *Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.*

The song assumes on a few layers of background: England forcibly subjugates Ireland and erases their culture. England spins a narrative about how this is for Ireland's good. Irish people resist violently but by the time the song "takes place", at least this particular songwriter is reduced to singing ironic songs about it*. 

\[*note: I spent 5 minutes looking into the history of this song and couldn't figure out where it fell on the spectrum between "revolutionary war anthem" and "ironic social commentary." I am not an expert or even an enthusiastic hobbyist of Irish history\]

I was having a minor existential crisis while singing it, wrapping my ahead around a couple additional layers. What moral framework is the song actually operating under? Presumably the songwriter thinks it's *bad* that England subjugated Ireland, erased it's culture, while spinning a narrative of "for your own good." But there are multiple reasons you might think it's bad.

**Cosmopolitan Humanism**

My current moral outlook is "vaguely defined cosmopolitan humanism", with some contractualism and utilitarianism mixed in. In my moral framework, all humans have inherent moral worth, deserve the right to flourish on their own terms. I don't believe in "inherent moral rights" woven into the fabric of the universe, but I think rights are a useful contractualist framework. 

"It's bad for an empire to expand, take your stuff, and eradicate your culture because it violates people's rights?"

"It's bad for an empire to expand, take your stuff, and eradicate your culture because it leads to suffering?"

But I'm boggling a bit because this entire ethical framework probably only gets to exist after The Circle has expanded. And if the Circle only gets to expand *after* empires expand and forcibly integrates people into the ingroup... does it make any sense to judge empires within that framework? 

In practice, I don't think there's an alternate history where empires don't expand and subjugate people. I can look back and be sad about it. But if I could teleport back and time and create a really compelling humanist religion that included "don't forcibly expand your empire", I'd expect that religion to get outcompeted by expansionist religions, and the most successful expansionist religions to expand at swordpoint.

**Taking Your Stuff, Defending My Stuff**

My guess (again, not a historian or even enthusiastic hobbyist) is that prior to the English "winning", it's not like the Irish were sitting around being noble pacifists. I'm assuming there were a bunch of little conflicts, both between various Irish clans, between Irish and English kingdoms, etc. Some of these conflicts had narratives about religion or culture woven around them, but probably they mostly boiled down to "fuck you, I have a sword and I want your stuff", and "fuck you for taking my stuff." 

"It's bad for an empire to expand, take your stuff, and eradicate your culture because *fuck you it's my stuff and my culture?"*

\[Blogposts to write someday: "Escalation Spirals", and "Confusions re: Morality vs Coordination."\]

I think "fuck you for taking my stuff" is a "legitimate" grievance. But it's often intermixed with "Also, I want an excuse to take *your* stuff", which makes it hard to look back and say which conflicts are "legitimate retribution". 

History is a tangled web of grievances. It feels bad to me (from within my current cosmopolitan morality) to sweep the past under a rug and ignore all those grievances. But they're (probably) also so tangled that addressing them in any serious way is pretty intractable. 

**Self Righteous Narratives**

Notably, it's not just that England comes in, takes stuff and eradicates culture. It does so while spinning a narrative about this being for the Irish's own good. That narrative adds some insult to injury. If you're gonna come take my stuff, at least don't make up a self righteous narrative about it.

"It's bad to make up self righteous reasons for taking people's stuff because it degrades the epistemic commons, which is an important shared resource that even rivals should be able to agree is important?"

"It's bad to make up self righteous reasons for taking people's stuff because *fuck you this is degrading?"*

Looking back, I think it's basically inevitable for empires to expand at swordpoint. But could they have been more honest about it?

If I could teleport back in time and make a religion that says "Okay fine expand your empires at swordpoint if you must, but don't make up self-righteous reasons for it", would *that* have worked? Probably not. There are still tons of pretenses available. People are too good at failing to notice when their motivations are self-serving to implement that.

Plus, on the other hand: It's sort of interesting that people even bother *having* self-righteous narratives about "for their own good." The fact that one bother's spinning this narrative is evidence of *some* kind of expanding circle of concern. My guess is that White Man's Burden style self-serving morality was a necessary stepping stone to an actually functional Universal Humanism.*

**Fundamentally confused about my worldview**

As I write this, it feels noteworthy that I don't think there currently *exists* a functional Universal Humanism. I think the current generation popular version of it doesn't have a firm enough grasp of rationality or coordination theory built into it.

I feel confused, both in a practical standpoint and in a narrative standpoint (and the two are related)

On one hand none of this is very new to me. I gave a [Solstice speech in 2015](https://secularsolstice.com/mistakes-were-made/) that dealt with some of this. But some reason my current round of reflections feel fresh and raw and confusing to me.

It feels like I have multiple disjunct pieces of worldview. "Human progress == good", "taking people's stuff and manipulating their culture for your benefit == bad", "imperialism often contains literal evil and also maybe was responsible for most of what I consider good" are three floating nodes that feel tacked together with duck tape. 

I have enough working memory to think about all three nodes at the same time, but it's effortful. I'd like to have them bundled into one chunk that feels smooth and seamless as I go on to combine it with 6 different additional concepts.

Most of a the nearby attractor-states are dangerously simplified. I am sometimes tempted to paper over the harms of empires. I am sometime tempted to overly villainize them, or wallow in the confusion. 

There are empirical questions that feel relevant ("Were the pyramids of Egypt built by slaves, or free laborers?"). They have actual answers (my current understanding is "free laborers"), but I expect new evidence to accumulate which shifts probability mass around, and no one piece of evidence is an overwhelming crux for how I want to feel about the human story. 

It's a factual question whether my worldview was birthed by processes I endorse, or processes I don't.

I have a vague sense of "how am I supposed to judge humanity?" is a confused question, which I am maybe supposed to dissolve. But I'm not sure I'm supposed to dissolve it so hard that I stop caring about it.