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It certainly uses a logical structure that requires independent variables when we have strong evidence to believe these things are not independent. "if other s

It certainly uses a logical structure that requires independent variables when we have strong evidence to believe these things are not independent. "if other sentient species exist, we should expect ours to have an unusually high population" Except that sentience evolving is, as far as we know, extremely tied to population numbers and then afterwards sentient agents will have strong incentives to manage their population in some way (or you could say: the odds of them deciding to exactly match their pre-sentient population levels, now that they can make a choice, is small). The underlying explanation of the principle of mediocrity and a mathematical intuition for it is pretty good. Maybe people in 2021 are just extremely skeptical about "if we assume the most likely thing every step and pretend each choice is independent we can build a prediction that we can assume is maximally accurate, which means it is meaningfully accurate" chains of reasoning? That's how you get "Roko's Basilisk scenarios scaring people" type outcomes. It certainly is the source of my distaste and bias against it if I'm being honest with myself.

natosaichek 5y ago
The ability to solve widespread coordination problems is... probably orthogonal to consciousness? Bees and ants do it without consciousness, and humans clearly suck at it. Or you could say: The odds of them being capable of using their sentience to solve their desire to have a controlled population level is small.
- plutonorm 5y ago
  “Bees and ants do it without consciousness” do they? Prove it.
- freshhawk 5y ago
  Our population changed radically when we gained sentience. I don't see how it is reasonable to assume a species will gain sentience and not alter their behaviour in a way that alters their population. That is a "big" threshold to cross in terms of ability to alter your surroundings. It doesn't have to be controlled, it just has to change significantly because of the gain of sentience for this argument to not be valid.

natosaichek 5y ago

The ability to solve widespread coordination problems is... probably orthogonal to consciousness? Bees and ants do it without consciousness, and humans clearly suck at it. Or you could say: The odds of them being capable of using their sentience to solve their desire to have a controlled population level is small.

plutonorm 5y ago
“Bees and ants do it without consciousness” do they? Prove it.
freshhawk 5y ago
Our population changed radically when we gained sentience. I don't see how it is reasonable to assume a species will gain sentience and not alter their behaviour in a way that alters their population. That is a "big" threshold to cross in terms of ability to alter your surroundings. It doesn't have to be controlled, it just has to change significantly because of the gain of sentience for this argument to not be valid.