5 ms·
Very much agree with the authors take "Bostrom himself argued that we should seriously consider establishing a global, invasive surveillance system that monito
by Barrin92 5y ago
Very much agree with the authors take
"Bostrom himself argued that we should seriously consider establishing a global, invasive surveillance system that monitors every person on the planet in realtime, to amplify the ‘capacities for preventive policing’ (eg, to prevent omnicidal terrorist attacks that could devastate civilisation). Elsewhere, he’s written that states should use preemptive violence/war to avoid existential catastrophes, and argued that saving billions of actual people is the moral equivalent of reducing existential risk by utterly minuscule amounts. In his words, even if there is ‘a mere 1 per cent chance’ of 1054 people existing in the future, then ‘the expected value of reducing existential risk by a mere one billionth of one billionth of one percentage point is worth 100 billion times as much as a billion human lives"
I think this pretty much amounts to some sort of secular, Dune-esque cosmic Jihad and it's deeply ironic (but not surprising) that this Bostrom style thinking has basically turned into a religious quest. These singularity think tanks have basically invented the secular, technobabble version of religious myths including their version of the Golem (AI), eternal life and resurrection (upload your brain to the cloud), and the apocalypse (existential risks), the pursuit of some sort of cosmic consciousness and so forth.
Charlie Stross years ago showed just how closely this kind of stuff resembles offshoots off Russian Orthodox Christianity (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/07/federovs-rapture.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/07/federovs...)
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoWasn't that quote basically the plot of Captain America: The Winter Soldier? It really does feel like it should end with a Hail Hydra!
- ogogmad 5y agoBeen talking to some rationalists about "future of humanity" and religion. Your comment touches on both. This might be relevant: If there's no life after death, and we're doomed to eternal oblivion, wouldn't it be worth creating a life which feels fulfilled before entering the oblivion? And if our consciousness doesn't survive us, shouldn't we ensure that some good part of us survives for much longer than us? These would be my questions in light of a world which is showing itself to not be governed by any supernatural force (as far as I can tell).
- worrycue 5y ago> And if our consciousness doesn't survive us, shouldn't we ensure that some good part of us survives for much longer than us? Why? When you are dead you won’t care.
- ogogmad 5y agoThen why do you care if you live or die right now?
- worrycue 5y agoIt generally hurts to die.
- md8z 5y agoI think that is just as good an answer for the "why not" as it is for the "why" :)
- worrycue 5y agoI guess it depends on the cost of doing something. I won’t care when I’m dead but I will care if I can feel the effects while I still live.
- Arrath 5y agoFor what positives our actions can impart upon the world, that will outlive us? I've helped build wind farms and green energy projects, I've restored wildlife habitat, and I feel good about having done these things that will continue to effect the world after I'm worm food.
- imbnwa 5y agoWe're in the post-Augustinian Roman Empire phase all over again, with all sorts of mysticisms and cults springing up to make sense of a cosmopolitan world decoupled from its parochial grounding, many of these sharing overlapping ideas or re-using older ideas. Perhaps like then, one of these will surreptiously gain hegemony like that minor apocalyptic cult of Paul of Tarsus, now known as Christianity. History doesn't repeat itself but it sure does rhyme.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago"Bostrom himself argued that we should seriously consider establishing a global, invasive surveillance system..." I read Bostrom's book on existential risk and that does not sound like something he would advocate. Looking over the cited paper, I think the conclusion the author reached is extremely simplified. Rather than point to existential risk as the most important thing in the world, Bostrom has said that the gravity of the consequences means that a very small portion of our resources would be well spent to address existential risk, similar to Musk's take on the importance of space exploration. I think the author is grossly mischaracterizing "Longtermists'" views and how important they think it is.