I suspect that (at least in a Western world) “Pope” and “Dalai Lama” would be the most frequent answers.
“Western world” is small portion of mankind and, in this scenario, all mankind counts. I cannot see even one Western person out of hundred remember Dalai Lama when facing death and for the rest of the world, the few who heard about him (excepting Tibetan Buddhists) would not appreciate his morality in the slightest.
My vote goes to the Pope—Roman Catholics are the largest religous group worldwide. The result of your gedankenexperiment is fully Catholic world and Crusade decared against the alien scum.
The result of your gedankenexperiment is fully Catholic world and Crusade decared against the alien scum.
It’s extrapolated volition that matters, not current volition. If the Pope had the same beliefs about facts that we do, his most important difference with most of us might well be something like old age.
In the thought experiment I would also likely vote pope since he seems by far the most likely candidate to win and also would not be a moral leader so bad that I wouldn’t want to live in that world.
The result of your gedankenexperiment is fully Catholic world
Not actually true, I’m sure lots of educated people would make the guess that the pope is likely to win the election and vote the same way. I’m also pretty sure many non-Catholic Christians might decide he is the best pick likely to win.
I’m also pretty sure almost instantly after the calamity lots of humans would start worshipping the aliens.
and Crusade decared against the alien scum.
Unlikely to happen because of how suicidal that would be and that most Popes being intelligent people would realize this and would I think encourage the “turn the other cheek” memes to deal with the grief and outrage. However a few billion deaths might animate mankind aware of the cost in powerful and difficult to control ways.
They would kill us, or worse, without giving us any chance.
Just like a super-human AI without design for friendliness will probably kill us, or worse. An AI designed for friendliness will need some choices from us—for example whether to use CEV of humankind, and how to approximate it if we can’t measure literally every person on the planet—and a bad choice could have horrible consequences.
How would malevolent aliens behave? :-P
“Western world” is small portion of mankind and, in this scenario, all mankind counts. I cannot see even one Western person out of hundred remember Dalai Lama when facing death and for the rest of the world, the few who heard about him (excepting Tibetan Buddhists) would not appreciate his morality in the slightest.
My vote goes to the Pope—Roman Catholics are the largest religous group worldwide. The result of your gedankenexperiment is fully Catholic world and Crusade decared against the alien scum.
It’s extrapolated volition that matters, not current volition. If the Pope had the same beliefs about facts that we do, his most important difference with most of us might well be something like old age.
In the thought experiment I would also likely vote pope since he seems by far the most likely candidate to win and also would not be a moral leader so bad that I wouldn’t want to live in that world.
Not actually true, I’m sure lots of educated people would make the guess that the pope is likely to win the election and vote the same way. I’m also pretty sure many non-Catholic Christians might decide he is the best pick likely to win.
I’m also pretty sure almost instantly after the calamity lots of humans would start worshipping the aliens.
Unlikely to happen because of how suicidal that would be and that most Popes being intelligent people would realize this and would I think encourage the “turn the other cheek” memes to deal with the grief and outrage. However a few billion deaths might animate mankind aware of the cost in powerful and difficult to control ways.
They would kill us, or worse, without giving us any chance.
Just like a super-human AI without design for friendliness will probably kill us, or worse. An AI designed for friendliness will need some choices from us—for example whether to use CEV of humankind, and how to approximate it if we can’t measure literally every person on the planet—and a bad choice could have horrible consequences.