After his cryonics hour with Robin Hanson, orthonormal wrote:
Robin made the case that it’s much more marginally useful now to work on analyzing the potentially long tail of x-risks than to focus on one very salient scenario—kind of like the way Bruce Schneier talks about better security via building resilient structures rather than concentrating on foiling specific “Hollywood” terror scenarios.
This is something I’ve been vaguely wondering myself. CFAR or similar seems like it might be one way to do this, but right now their methodology doesn’t look very scalable (in-person workshops run by a small number of highly trained employees; contrast with LW or HPMoR). I’d be interested to hear if they have any plans to scale their operations up and if so what those plans look like. I’m also curious if they’re trying to get leading psychologists like Keith Stanovich or Daniel Kahneman involved—this seems like it would be useful for a bunch of reasons.
Another idea is to try to spread the politics is the mind-killer or nonviolent communication memes more strongly… in other words, try to accelerate the historical trend towards decreased violence, as discussed by Steven Pinker and others. I’ve heard rumors that Middle Easterners’ aggression may be caused by zinc deficiency from eating unleavened bread; don’t know how true/useful that is.
the way Bruce Schneier talks about better security via building resilient structures rather than concentrating on foiling specific “Hollywood” terror scenarios.
Also, see Taleb’s Antifragile
I’ve heard rumors that Middle Easterners’ aggression may be caused by zinc deficiency from eating unleavened bread; don’t know how true/useful that is.
I suspect some history/culture is a better explanation… But why not drop some zinc on them just in case? Go Team America!
After his cryonics hour with Robin Hanson, orthonormal wrote:
This is something I’ve been vaguely wondering myself. CFAR or similar seems like it might be one way to do this, but right now their methodology doesn’t look very scalable (in-person workshops run by a small number of highly trained employees; contrast with LW or HPMoR). I’d be interested to hear if they have any plans to scale their operations up and if so what those plans look like. I’m also curious if they’re trying to get leading psychologists like Keith Stanovich or Daniel Kahneman involved—this seems like it would be useful for a bunch of reasons.
Another idea is to try to spread the politics is the mind-killer or nonviolent communication memes more strongly… in other words, try to accelerate the historical trend towards decreased violence, as discussed by Steven Pinker and others. I’ve heard rumors that Middle Easterners’ aggression may be caused by zinc deficiency from eating unleavened bread; don’t know how true/useful that is.
Also, see Taleb’s Antifragile
I suspect some history/culture is a better explanation… But why not drop some zinc on them just in case? Go Team America!