I agree parts 2-5 wouldn’t make sense for all the random cause areas, but they would for a decent chunk of them. CO2-driven climate change, for example, would have been an excellent fit for those sections about 10 years ago.
That said, insofar as we’re mainly talking about level of discourse, I at least partially buy your argument. On the other hand, the OP makes it sound like you’re arguing against pessimism about shifting institutions in general, which is a much harder problem than discourse alone (as evidenced by the climate change movement, for instance).
the level of faith in changing discourse among the ~30 people I’m thinking of when writing this post seems miscalibratedly low.
The discourse that you’re referring to seems likely to be being Goodharted, so it’s not a good proxy for whether institutions will make sane decisions about world-ending AI technology. A test that would distinguish these variables would be to make logical arguments on a point that’s not widely accepted. If the response is updating or logical counterargument, that’s promising; if the response is some form of dismissal, that’s evidence the underlying generators of non-logic-processing are still there.
I agree parts 2-5 wouldn’t make sense for all the random cause areas, but they would for a decent chunk of them. CO2-driven climate change, for example, would have been an excellent fit for those sections about 10 years ago.
That said, insofar as we’re mainly talking about level of discourse, I at least partially buy your argument. On the other hand, the OP makes it sound like you’re arguing against pessimism about shifting institutions in general, which is a much harder problem than discourse alone (as evidenced by the climate change movement, for instance).
(Agree again)
To add:
The discourse that you’re referring to seems likely to be being Goodharted, so it’s not a good proxy for whether institutions will make sane decisions about world-ending AI technology. A test that would distinguish these variables would be to make logical arguments on a point that’s not widely accepted. If the response is updating or logical counterargument, that’s promising; if the response is some form of dismissal, that’s evidence the underlying generators of non-logic-processing are still there.