if you really want to know, it seems from anecdotal evidence that HPMR is helping raise the general sanity waterline
I haven’t looked—but it seems to be pretty amazing behaviour to me.
I’m not sure why you think they think that doomsday predictions are a good way to stimulate donations.
Using threats of the apocalypse is an ancient method, used by religions and cults for centuries.
Look for example at how much trouble people concerned with asteroid impacts have getting money
Their smallish p(DOOM) values probably don’t help too much.
My general impression is that spreading the DOOM virus around is rarely very constructive. It may well be actively harmful.
So should people not say what they are honestly thinking?
It is up to the people involved if they want to dabble in harmful self-fulfilling prophesies. Maybe society should reward them less and ignore them more, though. I figure, if we study the DOOM merchants more scientifically, we will have a better understanding of the risks and problems they cause—and what we should do about them.
Most people already have a pretty high barrier against END OF THE WORLD schemes. It is such an obvious and well-worn routine. However, it appears that not everyone has been immunised.
What is the analogy here. Is there a situation where simply talking about the risk of unFriendly AI will somehow make unFriendly AI more likely?
Ideally, DOOM SOON should sharpen our wits, and make us more vigilant and secure. However, the opposite response seems quite likely: DOOM SOON might make people feel despair, apathy, helplessness, futility and depression. Those things could then go on to cause a variety of problems. Most of them are not to do with intelligent machines—though the one I already mentioneddoes involve them.
Have the DOOM merchants looked into this kind of thing? Where are their reassurances that prophesying DOOM—and separating passing punters from their cash in the process—is a harmless pass-time, with no side effects?
If your standard is that they have to be clear there are no side effects, that’s a pretty high standard.
Sure. Doing more good than harm would be a nice start. I don’t know what the side effects of DOOM-mongering are—in detail, so it is hard to judge the scale of the side effects—besides the obvious financial losses among those involved. Probably, the most visible behaviour of the afflicted individuals is that they start flapping their hands and going on about DOOM—spreading the meme after being infected by it. To what extent this affects their relationships, work, etc. is not entirely clear. I would be interested in finding out, though.
I haven’t looked—but it seems to be pretty amazing behaviour to me.
Using threats of the apocalypse is an ancient method, used by religions and cults for centuries.
Their smallish p(DOOM) values probably don’t help too much.
It is up to the people involved if they want to dabble in harmful self-fulfilling prophesies. Maybe society should reward them less and ignore them more, though. I figure, if we study the DOOM merchants more scientifically, we will have a better understanding of the risks and problems they cause—and what we should do about them.
Most people already have a pretty high barrier against END OF THE WORLD schemes. It is such an obvious and well-worn routine. However, it appears that not everyone has been immunised.
Ideally, DOOM SOON should sharpen our wits, and make us more vigilant and secure. However, the opposite response seems quite likely: DOOM SOON might make people feel despair, apathy, helplessness, futility and depression. Those things could then go on to cause a variety of problems. Most of them are not to do with intelligent machines—though the one I already mentioned does involve them.
Sure. Doing more good than harm would be a nice start. I don’t know what the side effects of DOOM-mongering are—in detail, so it is hard to judge the scale of the side effects—besides the obvious financial losses among those involved. Probably, the most visible behaviour of the afflicted individuals is that they start flapping their hands and going on about DOOM—spreading the meme after being infected by it. To what extent this affects their relationships, work, etc. is not entirely clear. I would be interested in finding out, though.