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It’s not good [use of] analogy because it doesn’t add anything. Everyone already understands the concept of problems being less urgent as their arrival is farth
by SilasX 5y ago
It’s not good [use of] analogy because it doesn’t add anything. Everyone already understands the concept of problems being less urgent as their arrival is farther away in the future. They don’t need an analogy to understand that. Most often, you’d be responding to a strawman by acting like the core dispute involves your opponent not understanding that.
Yes, if you already accept that AGI dangers won’t be relevant until far into the future then that justifies a low priority.[1] But that’s exactly what’s under dispute, and the analogy doesn’t help resolve disagreement over how far it is!
[1] If the AGI alarmist accepts that it’s far off, the the dispute would be about something else, like the time-discounted danger. But in that case, the analogy still doesn’t work because the purported harm of AGI is much worse than that of traffic, and if you disagree about that, then, as before, the analogy doesn’t help resolve it.
- coldtea 5y ago>It’s not good [use of] analogy because it doesn’t add anything. Everyone already understands the concept of problems being less urgent as their arrival is farther away in the future. They don’t need an analogy to understand that. You've missed the point though. This analogy is not there to make them understand that - it's there to help them feel it. The analogy helps pin them to something the other can immediately feel as an absurd worry. Abstract understanding is not the only thing an analogy is good for.
- SilasX 5y agoSo… - They already agree you should discount concerns in proportion to how far they are unto the future. - You’re already aware of this agreement. - You shift the focus of the debate in a way that makes you look right about something (discounting future worries) even though your opponent was equally right. - All because, though they never wrong on that point, they didn’t “feel” the truth enough. Yeah, that’s pretty much a textbook example of how to showboat at the expense of a productive dialogue. Don’t do it unless status is more important to you than understanding. Reminds me of that scene in Thank You For Smoking where the dad shows he can “prove” chocolate is better than vanilla because “freedom good”. [1] (Sorry for the analogy — even if you agreed that such behavior is toxic, maybe you didn’t “feel it enough”, and you think that’s a valid reason to make it.) [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=vjOrOMVFCbs https://youtube.com/watch?v=vjOrOMVFCbs