Should the first blurb begin “Imagine that civilization would definitely be destroyed by” instead of “Imagine that the only way that civilization could be destroyed was by”? That’s what it seems like to me based on the second blurb.
Then maybe “Imagine that civilization would definitely be destroyed iff there was a...”?
The rest of the post still reads to me as if pandemic + recession is sufficient, not just necessary, for implying extinction. To be explicit, it sounds like you have ruled out the possibility of observing pandemic + recession + non-extinction, I would have thought you’d want to say that pandemic + recession = extinction, rather than the weaker statement that extinction requires pandemic + recession.
Should the first blurb begin “Imagine that civilization would definitely be destroyed by” instead of “Imagine that the only way that civilization could be destroyed was by”? That’s what it seems like to me based on the second blurb.
It’s easier to reason with a single cause of destruction: see http://lesswrong.com/lw/hw8/caught_in_the_glare_of_two_anthropic_shadows/
Then maybe “Imagine that civilization would definitely be destroyed iff there was a...”?
The rest of the post still reads to me as if pandemic + recession is sufficient, not just necessary, for implying extinction. To be explicit, it sounds like you have ruled out the possibility of observing pandemic + recession + non-extinction, I would have thought you’d want to say that pandemic + recession = extinction, rather than the weaker statement that extinction requires pandemic + recession.
Go with iff for that example.