What do you think of the change? (I think Bostrom’s terms are fine, but it’s still useful to have a word for the broad category of “knowing this may hurt you”.)
It is an unfortunate fact that everyone who starts to work on info hazards at some point decides to come up with their own typology. :P
As a result, there is a surfeit of terms here. Anders Sandberg has proposed “direct information hazard” as a broad category of info hazards that directly harm the knower, and I’ve largely adopted his usage. It does seem desirable to have a term for any kind of communication/information that harms the knower, regardless of whether it is true or false or neither.
“Cognition hazard” kind of gestures at this but doesn’t really capture it for me. I would guess a cognition hazard would be something that (a) is hazardous because it causes you to think about it a lot (brooding/obsessing/etc) or (b) is hazardous if you do so. This feels like a smaller/more technical category than what is usually captured by “memetic hazard”. Maybe “knowledge hazard” would do the trick, if you definitely want to abandon “standard” usage (such as it is)?
I’d say the first, third, and fourth of those options sound too broad—they don’t make it clear that this is about info. But I think something in that direction could be good (e.g., I proposed in a top-level comment “self-affecting info hazards”). I also think the term Anders Sandberg uses is acceptable.
Mostly I’d just want to steer away from using a term that sounds like it obviously should mean some other specific thing (which I’d personally say is the case for “memetic hazards”).
Knower hazard (sounds too much like “Noah hazard”?)
realisation hazard
comprehension hazard
...
I also thought of “culture hazard” but that sounds like a different thing.
I think it’s probably okay for the term to not be immediately intensely evocative of the thing we’re going for, as long as it’s (a) catchy and (b) makes enough sense once explained to be memorable. I do think “memetic hazard” meets both of these criteria, though perhaps (a) more than (b).
Ironically, and perhaps unfortunately, the current usage of “memetic hazard” does seem to be very memetically fit. :P
Regardless, I would also suggest that, while it’s definitely worth putting in some time and effort (and gathering of multiple opinions) to optimise terminology, it may still sometimes be worth adopting a term that is less ideal at describing what you want in order to avoid cross-term confusion.
I do want to flag that, following my own advice above, I would switch to “cognition hazard”/”cognitohazard” if that has the most consensus and we can’t come up with a better term, as long as we also find some new term for the other competing meaning of “memetic hazard”; this seems to be the strategy that minimises total confusion/conflict.
What do you think of the change? (I think Bostrom’s terms are fine, but it’s still useful to have a word for the broad category of “knowing this may hurt you”.)
It is an unfortunate fact that everyone who starts to work on info hazards at some point decides to come up with their own typology. :P
As a result, there is a surfeit of terms here. Anders Sandberg has proposed “direct information hazard” as a broad category of info hazards that directly harm the knower, and I’ve largely adopted his usage. It does seem desirable to have a term for any kind of communication/information that harms the knower, regardless of whether it is true or false or neither.
“Cognition hazard” kind of gestures at this but doesn’t really capture it for me. I would guess a cognition hazard would be something that (a) is hazardous because it causes you to think about it a lot (brooding/obsessing/etc) or (b) is hazardous if you do so. This feels like a smaller/more technical category than what is usually captured by “memetic hazard”. Maybe “knowledge hazard” would do the trick, if you definitely want to abandon “standard” usage (such as it is)?
Some quick musings on alternatives for the “self-affecting” info hazard type:
Personal hazard
Self info hazard
Self hazard
Self-harming hazard
I’d say the first, third, and fourth of those options sound too broad—they don’t make it clear that this is about info. But I think something in that direction could be good (e.g., I proposed in a top-level comment “self-affecting info hazards”). I also think the term Anders Sandberg uses is acceptable.
Mostly I’d just want to steer away from using a term that sounds like it obviously should mean some other specific thing (which I’d personally say is the case for “memetic hazards”).
Brainstorming:
Cognition hazard
Knowledge hazard
Awareness hazard
Knower hazard (sounds too much like “Noah hazard”?)
realisation hazard
comprehension hazard
...
I also thought of “culture hazard” but that sounds like a different thing.
I think it’s probably okay for the term to not be immediately intensely evocative of the thing we’re going for, as long as it’s (a) catchy and (b) makes enough sense once explained to be memorable. I do think “memetic hazard” meets both of these criteria, though perhaps (a) more than (b).
Ironically, and perhaps unfortunately, the current usage of “memetic hazard” does seem to be very memetically fit. :P
I do want to flag that, following my own advice above, I would switch to “cognition hazard”/”cognitohazard” if that has the most consensus and we can’t come up with a better term, as long as we also find some new term for the other competing meaning of “memetic hazard”; this seems to be the strategy that minimises total confusion/conflict.