There’s a sense in which negativity bias is just rationality; you focus on the things you can improve, that’s where the work is. These things are sometimes called “problems”. The thing is, the healthy form of this is aware that the work can actually be done, so, should be very interested in, and aware of technologies of existential safety, and that is where I am and have been for a long time.
The problem is that focusing on a negative frame enabled by negativity bias will blind you to solutions, and is in general a great way to get depressed fast, which kills your ability to solve problems. Even more importantly, the problems might be imaginary, created by negativity biases.
It’s essentially a frame that views things in a negative light, or equivalently a frame that views a certain issue as by default negative unless action is taken.
For example, climate change can be viewed in the negative, which is that we have to solve the problem or we all die, or as a positive frame where we can solve the problem by green tech
I was hoping to understand why people who are concerned about the climate ignore greentech/srm.
One effect, is that people who want to raise awareness about the severity of an issue have an incentive to avoid acknowledging solutions to it, because that diminishes its severity. But this is an egregore-level phenomenon, there is no individual negative cognitive disposition that’s driving that phenomenon as far as I can tell. Mostly, in the case of climate, it seems to be driven by a craving for belonging in a political scene.
The point I was trying to make is that we click on and read negative news, and this skews our perceptions of what’s happening, and critically the negativity bias operates regardless of the actual reality of the problem, that is it doesn’t distinguish between the things that are very bad, just merely bad but solvable, and not bad at all.
In essence, I’m positing a selection effect, where we keep hearing more about the bad things, and hear less or none about the good things, so we are biased to believe that our world is more negative than it actually is.
And to connect it to the first comment, the reason you keep noticing precursors to existentially risky technology but not precursors existentially safe technology, or why this is happening:
To me it is as if technologies that tend to do more good than harm, or at least, would improve our odds by their introduction, social or otherwise, do not exist. That can’t be right, surely?...
Is essentially an aspect of negativity bias because your information sources emphasize the negative over the positive news, no matter what reality looks like.
There’s a sense in which negativity bias is just rationality; you focus on the things you can improve, that’s where the work is. These things are sometimes called “problems”. The thing is, the healthy form of this is aware that the work can actually be done, so, should be very interested in, and aware of technologies of existential safety, and that is where I am and have been for a long time.
The problem is that focusing on a negative frame enabled by negativity bias will blind you to solutions, and is in general a great way to get depressed fast, which kills your ability to solve problems. Even more importantly, the problems might be imaginary, created by negativity biases.
What is a negative frame.
It’s essentially a frame that views things in a negative light, or equivalently a frame that views a certain issue as by default negative unless action is taken.
For example, climate change can be viewed in the negative, which is that we have to solve the problem or we all die, or as a positive frame where we can solve the problem by green tech
I was hoping to understand why people who are concerned about the climate ignore greentech/srm.
One effect, is that people who want to raise awareness about the severity of an issue have an incentive to avoid acknowledging solutions to it, because that diminishes its severity. But this is an egregore-level phenomenon, there is no individual negative cognitive disposition that’s driving that phenomenon as far as I can tell.
Mostly, in the case of climate, it seems to be driven by a craving for belonging in a political scene.
The point I was trying to make is that we click on and read negative news, and this skews our perceptions of what’s happening, and critically the negativity bias operates regardless of the actual reality of the problem, that is it doesn’t distinguish between the things that are very bad, just merely bad but solvable, and not bad at all.
In essence, I’m positing a selection effect, where we keep hearing more about the bad things, and hear less or none about the good things, so we are biased to believe that our world is more negative than it actually is.
And to connect it to the first comment, the reason you keep noticing precursors to existentially risky technology but not precursors existentially safe technology, or why this is happening:
Is essentially an aspect of negativity bias because your information sources emphasize the negative over the positive news, no matter what reality looks like.
The link where I got this idea is below:
https://archive.is/lc0aY