In the comments on Safety is not Safe, I saw little disagreement with the thesis that civilization-ending threats lurk everywhere, and we lack the mental tools to perceive them; let alone avert them; that, in fact, every previous civilization has had the same defect and been brought low by it.
This doesn’t sound substantially different from “an incipient civilization-ending comprehensive failure of rationality, brought on by processes endogenous to cultural and institutional development.” If we proceed from the conclusions of Safety is not Safe, The remaining questions are whether natural far-mode thinkers decreasing their relative fitness is one of these problems, and whether society’s failure to grasp cryonics is a sign of this problem.
In the comments on Safety is not Safe, I saw little disagreement with the thesis that civilization-ending threats lurk everywhere, and we lack the mental tools to perceive them; let alone avert them; that, in fact, every previous civilization has had the same defect and been brought low by it.
This doesn’t sound substantially different from “an incipient civilization-ending comprehensive failure of rationality, brought on by processes endogenous to cultural and institutional development.” If we proceed from the conclusions of Safety is not Safe, The remaining questions are whether natural far-mode thinkers decreasing their relative fitness is one of these problems, and whether society’s failure to grasp cryonics is a sign of this problem.