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Keep in mind, every scenario that Less Wrong warns about (nuclear war, climate change, bio-terrorisms, AI risk, etc.) is backed up by a large number of experts

Keep in mind, every scenario that Less Wrong warns about (nuclear war, climate change, bio-terrorisms, AI risk, etc.) is backed up by a large number of experts in the field. Can you point to even one improbable scenario you made up, that has anywhere near that level of expert agreement?

PaulHoule 3y ago
The underlying crazy scenario is that they say you have to evaluate all of the above relative to the possibility of losing a glorious future where we colonize the galaxy with self-replicating machines and put Dyson spheres around all of the stars, and can then simulate millions of copies of all the people who had the foresight to be cryonically frozen or something… And practically those folks are dismissive of climate change relative to the others and are generally not interested in technology relevant to their “long term” vision such as space industrialization, rather they spam us will trolley problems in an attempt to erase our moral sensibilities. Overall there is a religious orientation to the problem and a complete indifference to the complex social and technical problems of, for instance, switching to a carbon neutral energy system and otherwise managing risks.
- handoflixue 3y ago
  I mean, you can drop everything about Dyson spheres and the like and still appreciate "I would prefer the human race not to go extinct". The central arguments aren't about cryonics or anything, they're about "I would prefer the human race not to go extinct". To say those folks are "dismissive and generally not interested in technology" seems pretty wild, given those folks include Elon Musk, Bill Gates, the CEO of OpenAI, etc. - despite any flaws you might find with them, this is hardly a group known for being disinterested in tech.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    As far as I know, those people (Musk, Gates, et. al) aren’t hanging about on Less Wrong. Sure, anti-capitalists impute great significance in Musk giving nearly $2M to a longtermist organization but for him that is like me giving 78 cents to a bum and getting blamed for the latest explosion at the homeless colony. If you don’t want mankind to go extinct I would recommend you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action for some explanation why problems that could get solved never get solved. Civilizations don’t fail because they have problems, they fail because they can’t solve the problems in front of them. Some mash-up up of H.P. Lovecraft, Teilhard de Chardin, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientology isn’t going to help.

PaulHoule 3y ago

The underlying crazy scenario is that they say you have to evaluate all of the above relative to the possibility of losing a glorious future where we colonize the galaxy with self-replicating machines and put Dyson spheres around all of the stars, and can then simulate millions of copies of all the people who had the foresight to be cryonically frozen or something… And practically those folks are dismissive of climate change relative to the others and are generally not interested in technology relevant to their “long term” vision such as space industrialization, rather they spam us will trolley problems in an attempt to erase our moral sensibilities. Overall there is a religious orientation to the problem and a complete indifference to the complex social and technical problems of, for instance, switching to a carbon neutral energy system and otherwise managing risks.

handoflixue 3y ago
I mean, you can drop everything about Dyson spheres and the like and still appreciate "I would prefer the human race not to go extinct". The central arguments aren't about cryonics or anything, they're about "I would prefer the human race not to go extinct". To say those folks are "dismissive and generally not interested in technology" seems pretty wild, given those folks include Elon Musk, Bill Gates, the CEO of OpenAI, etc. - despite any flaws you might find with them, this is hardly a group known for being disinterested in tech.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  As far as I know, those people (Musk, Gates, et. al) aren’t hanging about on Less Wrong. Sure, anti-capitalists impute great significance in Musk giving nearly $2M to a longtermist organization but for him that is like me giving 78 cents to a bum and getting blamed for the latest explosion at the homeless colony. If you don’t want mankind to go extinct I would recommend you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action for some explanation why problems that could get solved never get solved. Civilizations don’t fail because they have problems, they fail because they can’t solve the problems in front of them. Some mash-up up of H.P. Lovecraft, Teilhard de Chardin, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientology isn’t going to help.