Eliezer: I’m glad you’re finally willing to at least consider the possibility that the world can end up someplace that is neither paperclips nor singulariparadise. A few years back a friend of mine asked you on the #sl4 IRC channel “what do you need to continue your work in the event of collapse” and your response bordered on dismissive. What got you to take long-term economic slump seriously as an existential threat?
Jonathan El-Bizri: on what grounds do you assume we will have GM biofuels online in less than ten years? How much per gallon in 2009 dollars do you expect such a fuel to cost? Why?
Jes: Mad Max scenarios happen all the time. Daily life in much of sub-Saharan Africa is one big Mad Max scenario. Afghanistan is a Mad Max scenario (and was before the US invaded, and still was before the Soviets invaded). What the hunker-in-a-bunker crowd gets wrong is the transition phase: they neglect to think about what needs to happen BETWEEN now and the final descent into chaos and barbarism. What are the upper and lower bounds on how long this transition phase takes? What might be some indicators that the transition is occurring and how far along it is? Guns and canned food only become valuable asset in the late stages. Nobody seems to even ask what’s a good investment in the early and middle stages of descent. If only they did, they might end up with more spending power to use on said guns and canned food in the later stages. Thoughts?
As for me, I’ve been paying attention to some bearish index-tracking ETFs, whose value is inversely related to the performance of the target index (e.g. SRS, SKF). Certain alternative energy companies might also be good investments, as might be railroads and their suppliers. Coal and “green” coal processing. But of course investing in individual companies or even sector tracking ETFs requires a lot more research, caveat emptor.
Here’s an odd bias I notice among the AI and singularity crowd: a lot of us seem to only plan for science-fictional emergencies, and not for mundane ones like economic collapse. Why is that? Anybody else notice this?
Eliezer: I’m glad you’re finally willing to at least consider the possibility that the world can end up someplace that is neither paperclips nor singulariparadise. A few years back a friend of mine asked you on the #sl4 IRC channel “what do you need to continue your work in the event of collapse” and your response bordered on dismissive. What got you to take long-term economic slump seriously as an existential threat?
Jonathan El-Bizri: on what grounds do you assume we will have GM biofuels online in less than ten years? How much per gallon in 2009 dollars do you expect such a fuel to cost? Why?
Jes: Mad Max scenarios happen all the time. Daily life in much of sub-Saharan Africa is one big Mad Max scenario. Afghanistan is a Mad Max scenario (and was before the US invaded, and still was before the Soviets invaded). What the hunker-in-a-bunker crowd gets wrong is the transition phase: they neglect to think about what needs to happen BETWEEN now and the final descent into chaos and barbarism. What are the upper and lower bounds on how long this transition phase takes? What might be some indicators that the transition is occurring and how far along it is? Guns and canned food only become valuable asset in the late stages. Nobody seems to even ask what’s a good investment in the early and middle stages of descent. If only they did, they might end up with more spending power to use on said guns and canned food in the later stages. Thoughts?
As for me, I’ve been paying attention to some bearish index-tracking ETFs, whose value is inversely related to the performance of the target index (e.g. SRS, SKF). Certain alternative energy companies might also be good investments, as might be railroads and their suppliers. Coal and “green” coal processing. But of course investing in individual companies or even sector tracking ETFs requires a lot more research, caveat emptor.
Here’s an odd bias I notice among the AI and singularity crowd: a lot of us seem to only plan for science-fictional emergencies, and not for mundane ones like economic collapse. Why is that? Anybody else notice this?