Really x-risk mitigation is for dessert, though. There are so many failures of our society that are lower-hanging in terms of how rational you have to be to see them.
For example, the spending of $1,000,000,000,000 ($10^12) on the Iraq and Afghan wars. Just think about the good that could have been done with that money if it had gone into science and medical research. Imagine putting 1% of that money towards life-extension research—that’s $10,000,000,000. Then cry.
That is a lot of zeros. I had to count them twice on http://costofwar.com/ to make sure I got it right.
Really x-risk mitigation is for dessert, though. There are so many failures of our society that are lower-hanging in terms of how rational you have to be to see them.
I’d say it is more “so you get to dessert”! There as a backup behind “create an FAI and thereby cure death”. (So I’m being a bit reckless and blurring my categories when I put Xrisk at 50%.)
Really x-risk mitigation is for dessert, though. There are so many failures of our society that are lower-hanging in terms of how rational you have to be to see them.
I’d say it is more “so you get to dessert”! There as a backup behind “create an FAI and thereby cure death”.
I agree totally that FAI is the single most important problem, but it is hard to see that. As far as I know, Bostrom/Eliezer noticed it as a problem about 10-13 years ago, before which not one person in the world had seen it as a problem. If our world had at least solved the easier-to-see problems, then one would have some confidence that FAI would at least be considered.
For deleted context of parent please refer to grand-aunt. (Courtesy of a bizarre bug somewhere in which every comment and PM reply of mine was being posted twice and, evidently, fast response by Roko.)
Really x-risk mitigation is for dessert, though. There are so many failures of our society that are lower-hanging in terms of how rational you have to be to see them.
For example, the spending of $1,000,000,000,000 ($10^12) on the Iraq and Afghan wars. Just think about the good that could have been done with that money if it had gone into science and medical research. Imagine putting 1% of that money towards life-extension research—that’s $10,000,000,000. Then cry.
That is a lot of zeros. I had to count them twice on http://costofwar.com/ to make sure I got it right.
I’d say it is more “so you get to dessert”! There as a backup behind “create an FAI and thereby cure death”. (So I’m being a bit reckless and blurring my categories when I put Xrisk at 50%.)
That $10b on life extension sounds about right!
I’d say it is more “so you get to dessert”! There as a backup behind “create an FAI and thereby cure death”.
I agree totally that FAI is the single most important problem, but it is hard to see that. As far as I know, Bostrom/Eliezer noticed it as a problem about 10-13 years ago, before which not one person in the world had seen it as a problem. If our world had at least solved the easier-to-see problems, then one would have some confidence that FAI would at least be considered.
For deleted context of parent please refer to grand-aunt. (Courtesy of a bizarre bug somewhere in which every comment and PM reply of mine was being posted twice and, evidently, fast response by Roko.)
ETA: And I agree with parent.