Do you think that there is a non-secular way forward? Did you previously (before your belief update) think there is a non-secular way forward?
Yes, I did always think there was a non-secular way forward for all sorts of problems. It’s just that I realized AI X-risk is just one head of an immense hydra: technological X-risks. I’m more interested in slaying that hydra, than in coming up with ways to deal with just one of its myriad heads.
those indicators seem pretty meaningful for me. Life expectancy, poverty rates, etc.
Yeah, the indicators are worth something, but they are certainly not everything! Slavish devotion to the indicators renders one blind to critical stuff, such as X-risk, but also to things like humanity becoming something hideous or pathetic in the future.
Why are the standard arguments against religion/magic and for materialism and reductionism not compelling to you anymore?
The hard problem of consciousness combined with learning the actual tenets of Hinduism (read the Ashtavakra Gita), was the big one for me. Dostoyevsky also did a bang up job depicting the spiritual poverty of the materialist worldview.
Yes, I did always think there was a non-secular way forward for all sorts of problems. It’s just that I realized AI X-risk is just one head of an immense hydra: technological X-risks. I’m more interested in slaying that hydra, than in coming up with ways to deal with just one of its myriad heads.
Yeah, the indicators are worth something, but they are certainly not everything! Slavish devotion to the indicators renders one blind to critical stuff, such as X-risk, but also to things like humanity becoming something hideous or pathetic in the future.
The hard problem of consciousness combined with learning the actual tenets of Hinduism (read the Ashtavakra Gita), was the big one for me. Dostoyevsky also did a bang up job depicting the spiritual poverty of the materialist worldview.