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It is "bond villian thinking" in the sense that it is fictional. Indeed, the Author of this article has a long history of deliberately misrepresenting the views

by shkkmo 3y ago

It is "bond villian thinking" in the sense that it is fictional. Indeed, the Author of this article has a long history of deliberately misrepresenting the views of longtermists. In particular, there is significant overlap between longtermists and members of the EA community that donate a portion of their income to Malaria prevent that does not round to zero. Here's some counter points: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kageSSDLSMpuwkPKK/response-to-recent-criticisms-of-longtermism-1 https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kageSSDLSMpuwkPKK/... https://markfuentes1.substack.com/p/emile-p-torress-history-of-dishonesty#§tyler-cowen https://markfuentes1.substack.com/p/emile-p-torress-history-...

tptacek 3y ago
The "Future of Humanity" article your link cites is a wonderful illustration of the phenomenon I'm describing, and thank you for providing it. It nitpicks percentage probabilities of environmental catastrophe (and the downstream effects of those catastrophes) in order to distinguish them from the real threats, which are characterized in part by Bostrom's assigned percentage probability ranges to such things as nanotechnological breakthroughs, neurotechnical rewiring of brains, and the vast, uncharted possibilities of (checks again) prediction markets. I'm happy with what this thread says about our respective positions! We disagree, and that's fine.
- shkkmo 3y ago
  I don't see how that paper illustrates that Bolstrom is a "James Bond Villian"... I also don't think that is a very constructive or productive way to criticize longtermists beliefs or arguments. I would much rather under the specific issues you have as I don't feel like I understand your position very well. > nitpicks percentage probabilities of environmental catastrophe (and the downstream effects of those catastrophes) in order to distinguish them from the real threats, which are characterized in part by Bostrom's assigned percentage probability ranges to such things as nanotechnological breakthroughs, neurotechnical rewiring of brains, I don't see much discussion, let alone nitpicking of those probabilities, nor do I seem any assignment of probability ranges in that paper. The closest I can find is where he discounts the predicted reduction of GPD due to global warming by comparing it to the last century of global GDP growth on page 13. To me this does seem a bit myopic as the potential for secondary effects, like an uptick in regional conflicts or the disruptive effects of mass migration seem extremely hard to predictively model and discount. The only place where I see Bostrom make probabalistic claims is where he talks about how the chances of a plateaued or recurrent collapse scenario seem to decrease as the time scale increases which the chances of a posthuman or extinction scenario increase. While we can't ascribe specific or even vague probabilities to these scenarios with any degree of accuracy for any timeframe, the overall statement about how these probabilities change as the timescale increases seems very reasonable. If this is what you disagree with, I'd be very curious to understand your reasoning.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    I think it suffices to respond that I attach some importance (not all the importance, but some) to estimates of the likelihood and cost of global climate catastrophe generated by thousands of specialist scientists working on the problem, and zero importance to the probabilities Bostrom attaches to technologies that don't exist today and the impacts they will have on society. Later The rebuttal in the blog post you cited previously is weak (it depends on the claim that Bostrom is discussing a hypothetical "standard utilitarian", when he uses similar logic to attribute the same conclusions, with some "modifications", to (what I'll call, because he's pilfered the word "standard") "normal" utilitarians. But that's neither here nor there. The Bostrom article he cites does a fine job of making my point for me.

by shkkmo 3y ago

tptacek 3y ago

The "Future of Humanity" article your link cites is a wonderful illustration of the phenomenon I'm describing, and thank you for providing it. It nitpicks percentage probabilities of environmental catastrophe (and the downstream effects of those catastrophes) in order to distinguish them from the real threats, which are characterized in part by Bostrom's assigned percentage probability ranges to such things as nanotechnological breakthroughs, neurotechnical rewiring of brains, and the vast, uncharted possibilities of (checks again) prediction markets. I'm happy with what this thread says about our respective positions! We disagree, and that's fine.

shkkmo 3y ago
I don't see how that paper illustrates that Bolstrom is a "James Bond Villian"... I also don't think that is a very constructive or productive way to criticize longtermists beliefs or arguments. I would much rather under the specific issues you have as I don't feel like I understand your position very well. > nitpicks percentage probabilities of environmental catastrophe (and the downstream effects of those catastrophes) in order to distinguish them from the real threats, which are characterized in part by Bostrom's assigned percentage probability ranges to such things as nanotechnological breakthroughs, neurotechnical rewiring of brains, I don't see much discussion, let alone nitpicking of those probabilities, nor do I seem any assignment of probability ranges in that paper. The closest I can find is where he discounts the predicted reduction of GPD due to global warming by comparing it to the last century of global GDP growth on page 13. To me this does seem a bit myopic as the potential for secondary effects, like an uptick in regional conflicts or the disruptive effects of mass migration seem extremely hard to predictively model and discount. The only place where I see Bostrom make probabalistic claims is where he talks about how the chances of a plateaued or recurrent collapse scenario seem to decrease as the time scale increases which the chances of a posthuman or extinction scenario increase. While we can't ascribe specific or even vague probabilities to these scenarios with any degree of accuracy for any timeframe, the overall statement about how these probabilities change as the timescale increases seems very reasonable. If this is what you disagree with, I'd be very curious to understand your reasoning.
- tptacek 3y ago
  I think it suffices to respond that I attach some importance (not all the importance, but some) to estimates of the likelihood and cost of global climate catastrophe generated by thousands of specialist scientists working on the problem, and zero importance to the probabilities Bostrom attaches to technologies that don't exist today and the impacts they will have on society. Later The rebuttal in the blog post you cited previously is weak (it depends on the claim that Bostrom is discussing a hypothetical "standard utilitarian", when he uses similar logic to attribute the same conclusions, with some "modifications", to (what I'll call, because he's pilfered the word "standard") "normal" utilitarians. But that's neither here nor there. The Bostrom article he cites does a fine job of making my point for me.