Question. I admit I have a low EQ here, but I”m not sure if 4) is sarcasm or not. It would certainly make a lot of sense if “I’ve been glad to see in this thread that we LW’s do, in fact, put our money where our mouths are when it comes to trying to navigate, circumvent, or otherwise evade the Mindkiller.” were sarcasm.
I would have said we had information on 2), but I’ve made so many wrong predictions about Donald Trump privately that I think my private opinion has lost all credibility there. 1) makes sense.
I can see why you might be afraid of war breaking out with Russia, but why do you consider Islam a major threat? Maybe you don’t and I’m misinterpreting you, but given how little damage terrorist attacks actually do isn’t Islam a regional problem to which the West has a major overreaction problem?
I was trying to be sincere with 4), although I admit that without tone of voice and body language, that’s hard to communicate sometimes. And even if LW hasn’t done as good a job as we could have with this topic, from what I’ve seen we’ve done far better than just about anyone not in the rationalist community at trying to remain rational.
Glad you agree with 1); when I first heard that argument (I didn’t come up with it), I had a massive moment of “that seems realy obvious, now that someone said it.”
With regards to 2), you’re right that we do have information on Trump; I spoke without precision. What I mean is this: beliefs are informed by evidence, and we have little evidence, given the nature of the American election, of what a candidate will behave like when they aren’t campaigning. I believe there’s a history of president-elects moderating their stances once they take office, although I have no direct evidence to support myself there.
When it comes to Islam, I should begin by saying that I’m sure the vast majority of Muslims simply want to live a decent life, just like the rest of us. However, theirs is the only religion active today that currently endorses holy war.
Then observe that MAD only applies to people unwilling to sacrifice their children for their cause, and further observe that Islam, as an idea, a meme, a religion, has successfully been able to make people do exactly that.
An American wouldn’t launch a nuke if it would kill their children, and Russian wouldn’t either. But a jihadist? From what I understand (which is admittedly not much on this topic), a jihadist just might. At least, the jihadist has a much higher probability of choosing a nuclear war over a nationalist.
I agree that the West overreacts in terms of Terrorism, in the sense that any given person is more likely to die in a car accident than be killed by a terrorist, but I was referring to existential threats, a common topic on LW and one that Yudkowsky himself seems concerned with regarding this election. Car crashes don’t threaten the existence of humanity; nuclear war does.
And because I can’t see how either candidate would effect the likelihood of unfriendly AI, a meteor, a plague, or any of the other existential risks, nuclear war becomes the deciding vote in the “who’s less likely to get us all killed” competition.
Admittedly, the risk of catastrophic climate change might be higher under Trump, but I’ve no evidence for that save the very standard left vs. right paradigm, which doesn’t seem to apply all that well to Trump anyway.
Question. I admit I have a low EQ here, but I”m not sure if 4) is sarcasm or not. It would certainly make a lot of sense if “I’ve been glad to see in this thread that we LW’s do, in fact, put our money where our mouths are when it comes to trying to navigate, circumvent, or otherwise evade the Mindkiller.” were sarcasm.
I would have said we had information on 2), but I’ve made so many wrong predictions about Donald Trump privately that I think my private opinion has lost all credibility there. 1) makes sense.
I can see why you might be afraid of war breaking out with Russia, but why do you consider Islam a major threat? Maybe you don’t and I’m misinterpreting you, but given how little damage terrorist attacks actually do isn’t Islam a regional problem to which the West has a major overreaction problem?
I was trying to be sincere with 4), although I admit that without tone of voice and body language, that’s hard to communicate sometimes. And even if LW hasn’t done as good a job as we could have with this topic, from what I’ve seen we’ve done far better than just about anyone not in the rationalist community at trying to remain rational.
Glad you agree with 1); when I first heard that argument (I didn’t come up with it), I had a massive moment of “that seems realy obvious, now that someone said it.”
With regards to 2), you’re right that we do have information on Trump; I spoke without precision. What I mean is this: beliefs are informed by evidence, and we have little evidence, given the nature of the American election, of what a candidate will behave like when they aren’t campaigning. I believe there’s a history of president-elects moderating their stances once they take office, although I have no direct evidence to support myself there.
When it comes to Islam, I should begin by saying that I’m sure the vast majority of Muslims simply want to live a decent life, just like the rest of us. However, theirs is the only religion active today that currently endorses holy war.
Then observe that MAD only applies to people unwilling to sacrifice their children for their cause, and further observe that Islam, as an idea, a meme, a religion, has successfully been able to make people do exactly that.
An American wouldn’t launch a nuke if it would kill their children, and Russian wouldn’t either. But a jihadist? From what I understand (which is admittedly not much on this topic), a jihadist just might. At least, the jihadist has a much higher probability of choosing a nuclear war over a nationalist.
I agree that the West overreacts in terms of Terrorism, in the sense that any given person is more likely to die in a car accident than be killed by a terrorist, but I was referring to existential threats, a common topic on LW and one that Yudkowsky himself seems concerned with regarding this election. Car crashes don’t threaten the existence of humanity; nuclear war does.
And because I can’t see how either candidate would effect the likelihood of unfriendly AI, a meteor, a plague, or any of the other existential risks, nuclear war becomes the deciding vote in the “who’s less likely to get us all killed” competition.
Admittedly, the risk of catastrophic climate change might be higher under Trump, but I’ve no evidence for that save the very standard left vs. right paradigm, which doesn’t seem to apply all that well to Trump anyway.
Thank you for your response.