“The Internet” is probably an interesting case study. It has grown from a very small niche product into a “fundamental right” in a relatively short time. One of the things that probably helped this shift is showing people what the internet could do for them—it became useful. This is understandably a difficult point on which to sell FAI.
Now that that surface analogy is over, how about the teleological analogy? In a way, environmentalism assumes the same mantle as FAI—“do it for the children”. Environmentalism has plenty of benefits over FAI—it has fuzzier mascots and more eminent problems—Terminators aren’t attacking, but more and more species are becoming extinct.
Environmentalism is still of interest here through the subtopic of climate change. Climate change already deals with some of the problems existential risk at large deals with—its veracity is argued, its importance is disputed, and the math is poorly understood. The next generation serves as a nice fuzzy mascot and the danger is of the dramatically helpful ever inexorably closer variety. Each day you don’t recycle, the earth is in more danger, &c. (The greater benefit of a creeping death, “zombie” danger may be that it negates the need for a mathematical understanding of the problem. It becomes “obvious” that the danger is real if it gets closer everyday.)
How can you convince people to solve a harder problem once, rather than every problem that crops up?
“The Internet” is probably an interesting case study. It has grown from a very small niche product into a “fundamental right” in a relatively short time. One of the things that probably helped this shift is showing people what the internet could do for them—it became useful. This is understandably a difficult point on which to sell FAI.
Now that that surface analogy is over, how about the teleological analogy? In a way, environmentalism assumes the same mantle as FAI—“do it for the children”. Environmentalism has plenty of benefits over FAI—it has fuzzier mascots and more eminent problems—Terminators aren’t attacking, but more and more species are becoming extinct.
Environmentalism is still of interest here through the subtopic of climate change. Climate change already deals with some of the problems existential risk at large deals with—its veracity is argued, its importance is disputed, and the math is poorly understood. The next generation serves as a nice fuzzy mascot and the danger is of the dramatically helpful ever inexorably closer variety. Each day you don’t recycle, the earth is in more danger, &c. (The greater benefit of a creeping death, “zombie” danger may be that it negates the need for a mathematical understanding of the problem. It becomes “obvious” that the danger is real if it gets closer everyday.)
How can you convince people to solve a harder problem once, rather than every problem that crops up?