I don’t think the disagreement here is about the feasibility of life extension. (I agree that it looks feasible.) I think the point that Benquo and I have been separately trying to make is that admonishing people to be angry independently of their anger having some specific causal effect on a specific target, doesn’t make sense in the context of trying to explain the “causal reality vs. social reality” frame. “People should be angrier about aging” might be a good thesis for a blog post, but I think it would work better as a different post.
And you needn’t be absolutely certain that curing death and aging is possible to demand we try. A chance should be enough.
I think the point that Benquo and I have been separately trying to make is that admonishing people to be angry independently of their anger having some specific causal effect on a specific target, doesn’t make sense in the context of trying to explain the “causal reality vs. social reality” frame.
I wonder if this is a point where I being misunderstood. Based on this and a few in-person conversations, people think I’m taking a normative stance here. I’m not. Not primarily. I am trying to understand a thing I am confused about and to explain my observations. I observe that my models lead me to expect that people would be doing X, but I do not observe that—so what am I missing?
Fore the record, for all those reading:
This post isn’t trying to tell anyone to do anything, and I’m not actively stating a judgment. I haven’t thought about what people should be doing. I’m not saying they should be clamoring in the streets. There is no active admonishing directed at anyone here. There is no thesis. I haven’t thought about what people should be doing enough—I haven’t thought through what would actually be strategic for them. So I don’t know. Not with any confidence, not enough to tell them what to do.
Given this is about my confusion about what I expect people to do and that I don’t expect people to be strategic, the question of whether or not doing X would be strategic isn’t really relevant. My model doesn’t predict people to be strategic, so the fact that strategic action might not to be do X doesn’t make me less confused.
(A valid counter to my confusion is saying that people are in fact strategic, but I’m rather incredulous. I’m not sure if you or Benquo were saying that?)
I am a bit confused, I might not be reading you carefully enough, but it feels here like you’re trying to explain people’s behavior with reference to normative behavior rather than descriptive (in this comment and earlier ones).
It’s precisely because I expect most people to think “but there’s still a chance right” that I would expect the possibility of life extension to motivate to action—more so than if they cared about the magnitude. (Also, caring about magnitude is a causal reality thing, I would say as the notion of probabilities is, seemingly.)
Your argument doesn’t make sense unless whatever “clamoring in the streets” stands in for metaphorically is an available action to the people you’re referring to. It seems to me like the vast majority of people are neither in an epistemic position where they can reasonably think that they know that there’s a good chance of curing aging, nor do they have any idea how to go about causing the relevant research to happen.
They do know how to increase the salience of “boo death,” but so far in the best case that seems to result in pyramids, which don’t work and never could, and even then only for the richest.
I don’t think the disagreement here is about the feasibility of life extension. (I agree that it looks feasible.) I think the point that Benquo and I have been separately trying to make is that admonishing people to be angry independently of their anger having some specific causal effect on a specific target, doesn’t make sense in the context of trying to explain the “causal reality vs. social reality” frame. “People should be angrier about aging” might be a good thesis for a blog post, but I think it would work better as a different post.
The magnitude of the chance matters! Have you read the Overly Convenient Excuses Sequence? I think Yudkowsky explained this well in the post “But There’s Still a Chance, Right?”.
I wonder if this is a point where I being misunderstood. Based on this and a few in-person conversations, people think I’m taking a normative stance here. I’m not. Not primarily. I am trying to understand a thing I am confused about and to explain my observations. I observe that my models lead me to expect that people would be doing X, but I do not observe that—so what am I missing?
Fore the record, for all those reading:
This post isn’t trying to tell anyone to do anything, and I’m not actively stating a judgment. I haven’t thought about what people should be doing. I’m not saying they should be clamoring in the streets. There is no active admonishing directed at anyone here. There is no thesis. I haven’t thought about what people should be doing enough—I haven’t thought through what would actually be strategic for them. So I don’t know. Not with any confidence, not enough to tell them what to do.
Given this is about my confusion about what I expect people to do and that I don’t expect people to be strategic, the question of whether or not doing X would be strategic isn’t really relevant. My model doesn’t predict people to be strategic, so the fact that strategic action might not to be do X doesn’t make me less confused.
(A valid counter to my confusion is saying that people are in fact strategic, but I’m rather incredulous. I’m not sure if you or Benquo were saying that?)
I am a bit confused, I might not be reading you carefully enough, but it feels here like you’re trying to explain people’s behavior with reference to normative behavior rather than descriptive (in this comment and earlier ones).
It’s precisely because I expect most people to think “but there’s still a chance right” that I would expect the possibility of life extension to motivate to action—more so than if they cared about the magnitude. (Also, caring about magnitude is a causal reality thing, I would say as the notion of probabilities is, seemingly.)
Your argument doesn’t make sense unless whatever “clamoring in the streets” stands in for metaphorically is an available action to the people you’re referring to. It seems to me like the vast majority of people are neither in an epistemic position where they can reasonably think that they know that there’s a good chance of curing aging, nor do they have any idea how to go about causing the relevant research to happen.
They do know how to increase the salience of “boo death,” but so far in the best case that seems to result in pyramids, which don’t work and never could, and even then only for the richest.