A couple things come to mind. The first is that we have to figure out how much we value attention from people that are not initially rational about it (as this determines how much Dark Art to use). I can see the extra publicity as helping, but if it gets the cause associated with “nut jobs”, then it may pass under the radar of the rational folk and do more harm than good.
The other thing that comes to mind is that this looks like an example of people using “far” reasoning. Learning how to get people to analyze the situation in “near” mode seems like it would be a very valuable tool in general (if anyone has any ideas, make a top level post!)
To give a couple examples, I recently talked to my roommate about the risks of AI, and on the surface he agreed it was a big deal. However, he didn’t make the connection “maybe cancer fundraisers aren’t the best way to spend my charity time”, and I don’t think he’ll actually do anything differently.
I talked to another friend about the same thing, and it scared the living crap out of him. He asked “How can you go on living like normal instead of working to fix it!?”. So far, so good. He looked like he was using the “near” method of thinking about it.
The catch though is that his conclusion was “Since there’s a small probability of me making the difference, I’d prefer to ‘stick my head in the sand’ and forget I heard this.”. This might actually be the rational response for someone that 1) doesn’t care about more than a small group of people, and 2) defects on true PD.
To recruit people like this it seems like we’d need to turn it into an iterated prisoners dilemma. If you caught as much flak for not donating to the FAI cause as you do for not recycling, then a lot more people would donate at least something.
I’d prefer to ‘stick my head in the sand’ and forget I heard this.”
that thought has occurred to me too… but I guess ignoring that voice is part of what makes (those of us who do) into something slightly more than self interested little apes.
A couple things come to mind. The first is that we have to figure out how much we value attention from people that are not initially rational about it (as this determines how much Dark Art to use). I can see the extra publicity as helping, but if it gets the cause associated with “nut jobs”, then it may pass under the radar of the rational folk and do more harm than good.
The other thing that comes to mind is that this looks like an example of people using “far” reasoning. Learning how to get people to analyze the situation in “near” mode seems like it would be a very valuable tool in general (if anyone has any ideas, make a top level post!)
To give a couple examples, I recently talked to my roommate about the risks of AI, and on the surface he agreed it was a big deal. However, he didn’t make the connection “maybe cancer fundraisers aren’t the best way to spend my charity time”, and I don’t think he’ll actually do anything differently.
I talked to another friend about the same thing, and it scared the living crap out of him. He asked “How can you go on living like normal instead of working to fix it!?”. So far, so good. He looked like he was using the “near” method of thinking about it.
The catch though is that his conclusion was “Since there’s a small probability of me making the difference, I’d prefer to ‘stick my head in the sand’ and forget I heard this.”. This might actually be the rational response for someone that 1) doesn’t care about more than a small group of people, and 2) defects on true PD.
To recruit people like this it seems like we’d need to turn it into an iterated prisoners dilemma. If you caught as much flak for not donating to the FAI cause as you do for not recycling, then a lot more people would donate at least something.
that thought has occurred to me too… but I guess ignoring that voice is part of what makes (those of us who do) into something slightly more than self interested little apes.