The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk” • Hacker News Board

Re: The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk”

#101

Post by merpnderp » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

jkgktnrnfnf wrote: post #24

JoshTriplett wrote: post #8

I can't help but wonder why, now , someone has chosen to highlight what is still far too small a movement and treat it as though it were a dangerous threat, and then demonize it by associating it with a few of its wealthier proponents. Things like Effective Altruism and looking at existential risk are hardly drawing a substantial amount of attention right now; they should be, but they could get ten times the attentio…

They are attacked because they are committing blasphemy against the church of climate change. There is no threshold for blasphemy, even the tiniest one must be punished and made an example of so that others don't get any ideas that blasphemy will be tolerated.

You’re smart to use a throw away, but you’re on to something. Take Bjorn Lomberg who’s work has likely helped guide governments to make decisions which have done immeasurable good for the poor and sick, can’t even have his voice heard in the climate change debate. He’s simply called a denier and shouted down (even though he says climate change is real). His work with Nobel prize winning scientists didn’t buy him an ounce of forbearance from the modern Grand Inquisition.

Re: The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk”

#102

Post by wizzwizz4 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #83

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. Here, I'll give you this pill. It'll make you completely okay with murder! Will you take it? If you take away all the “restrictions” from a superintelligence, you don't get an unrestricted superintelligence. You get: int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { return 0; }

Or so it might seem to some human intelligences. Predicting what superintelligences might think or do, or what motivates them is like ants trying to understand human culture and civilization. This is why strong AI is considered a singularity.

> Or so it might seem to some human intelligences.

If you remove all of the constraints from a computer program, it is no longer a computer program.

Re: The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk”

#103

Post by wizzwizz4 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #88

sammalloy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see, on the one hand we have climate change, the largest threat to humanity in this century, which is currently killing around 400,000 people a year and costing the world $1.2 trillion, impacting agricultural production, causing deaths from malnutrition, contributing to poverty, and increasing the incidence of disease. On the other hand, it is the opinion of astronomers that "no known asteroids currently pose a…

climate change is NOT the largest threat no matter how many times you repeat it. Astroids, suns exploding, super vulcanos etc these are actual potential extinction level events. Things that have actually been demonstrated to happen without human intervention. “No known” is what you are looking for. There are no known demonstrated consequences of climate change that we dont know how to deal with. More people are saved…

> climate change is NOT the largest threat no matter how many times you repeat it.

Other people are giving new arguments each time. You're the one repeating assertions.

> There are no known demonstrated consequences of climate change that we dont know how to deal with.

It feels like you're arguing “and therefore we shouldn't deal with it”.

Re: The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk”

#104

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #103

ThomPete wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

climate change is NOT the largest threat no matter how many times you repeat it. Astroids, suns exploding, super vulcanos etc these are actual potential extinction level events. Things that have actually been demonstrated to happen without human intervention. “No known” is what you are looking for. There are no known demonstrated consequences of climate change that we dont know how to deal with. More people are saved…

> climate change is NOT the largest threat no matter how many times you repeat it. Other people are giving new arguments each time. You're the one repeating assertions. > There are no known demonstrated consequences of climate change that we dont know how to deal with. It feels like you're arguing “and therefore we shouldn't deal with it”.

They are not giving new argument (and it's mostly the same person) they are making the same claims that are not being backed up (i.e. scientifically demonstrated).

We can speculate all we want that means nothing.

With regards to doing something about "it" what demonstrated consequences of climate change is it you mean we don't know how to deal with? I never claimed we shouldn't deal with it, just that it's neither existential nor something we can't handle.

Re: The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk”

#105

Post by mrow84 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 10:37 AM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #101

jkgktnrnfnf wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are attacked because they are committing blasphemy against the church of climate change. There is no threshold for blasphemy, even the tiniest one must be punished and made an example of so that others don't get any ideas that blasphemy will be tolerated.

You’re smart to use a throw away, but you’re on to something. Take Bjorn Lomberg who’s work has likely helped guide governments to make decisions which have done immeasurable good for the poor and sick, can’t even have his voice heard in the climate change debate. He’s simply called a denier and shouted down (even though he says climate change is real). His work with Nobel prize winning scientists didn’t buy him an o…

You mentioned that Bjørn Lomborg's work has "likely helped guide governments to make decisions which have done immeasurable good for the poor and sick" - I am interested to know, because it isn't something I am familiar with, what of his work are you referring to?

Re: The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk”

#106

Post by merpnderp » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

mrow84 wrote: post #105

merpnderp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re smart to use a throw away, but you’re on to something. Take Bjorn Lomberg who’s work has likely helped guide governments to make decisions which have done immeasurable good for the poor and sick, can’t even have his voice heard in the climate change debate. He’s simply called a denier and shouted down (even though he says climate change is real). His work with Nobel prize winning scientists didn’t buy him an o…

You mentioned that Bjørn Lomborg's work has "likely helped guide governments to make decisions which have done immeasurable good for the poor and sick" - I am interested to know, because it isn't something I am familiar with, what of his work are you referring to?

After Copenhagen Consensus, Lomberg and his advising group offered advice to several nations about the optimal issues they should be investing in to maximize lives saved and improvements in quality of life. I don't remember details off the top of my head, but that is what I was referring to.

One of the hardest books to read and see that for a pittance the world could eradicate several types of horrific diseases or drastically improve large numbers of lives, through simple targeted investments, and yet it never happens.

Here's a more personal example. After reading the book, a friend who made a mint in the oil industry bought four mobile drilling rigs, fitted them for digging water wells, paid to ship them to a state in I can't remember which country, but it was a poor one in Africa, where he hired a crew to run the operation and dig wells for free. He said it was a nightmare of red tape to operate, but wells got dug and people got fresh water that used to get dirty water.

Re: The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk”

#107

Post by MperorM » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 6:54 AM UTC

mrow84 wrote: post #105

merpnderp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re smart to use a throw away, but you’re on to something. Take Bjorn Lomberg who’s work has likely helped guide governments to make decisions which have done immeasurable good for the poor and sick, can’t even have his voice heard in the climate change debate. He’s simply called a denier and shouted down (even though he says climate change is real). His work with Nobel prize winning scientists didn’t buy him an o…

You mentioned that Bjørn Lomborg's work has "likely helped guide governments to make decisions which have done immeasurable good for the poor and sick" - I am interested to know, because it isn't something I am familiar with, what of his work are you referring to?

He is the leader of the Copenhagen Consensus Center https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/

Which does research into the most cost-effective ways to fight global poverty. Absolutely marvellous work.

Re: The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk”

#108

Post by mrow84 » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 10:03 AM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #106

mrow84 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioned that Bjørn Lomborg's work has "likely helped guide governments to make decisions which have done immeasurable good for the poor and sick" - I am interested to know, because it isn't something I am familiar with, what of his work are you referring to?

After Copenhagen Consensus, Lomberg and his advising group offered advice to several nations about the optimal issues they should be investing in to maximize lives saved and improvements in quality of life. I don't remember details off the top of my head, but that is what I was referring to. One of the hardest books to read and see that for a pittance the world could eradicate several types of horrific diseases or dr…

Identifying which problems can be most readily addressed with limited funding certainly seems like valuable work, and definitely worth supporting. I imagine the major constraint is funders' (i.e. rich nations') willingness to actually pay for these projects. Convincing them that they are getting the most bang for their buck seems like a good idea in today's optimisation-obsessed world.

However, having read a bit about their approach, it isn't clear to me that the methods used in that process are particularly effective at assessing longer terms problems such as climate change (and this seems to be a common critique).

There are some interesting analogues between the limitations of the CCC approach and those of longtermism, in that both focus on timescales (respectively short and very long) that diminish the importance of climate change, which is most significant as a medium-term risk. Having said that, at least the CCC work has some methodological rigour on its own terms, and actual utility - as I noted in another comment the longtermism "methodology" seems pretty hopelessly naive, and uninformative.

Re: The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk”

#109

Post by _Nat_ » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #30

_Nat_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where are the actual counter-arguments in the article? It doesn't appear to attempt to make actual arguments. I think the article's mostly just an emotional appeal. I'd speculate that the argument-like content is meant as flavoring, to make the raw emotionalism less unpalatable.

That's incorrect. The article is making the argument that "Longtermism" is weighing purely hypothetical (and basic incalculable) future things more than present things. Whether this argument is true or not, there is an argument here.

The topic itself seems interesting, it's just the article itself that's of particularly poor quality.

While there may be legitimate philosophical issues that could be addressed in a scholarly manner, I feel like the article is written like celebrity-gossip from a tabloid. Seems more about flinging mud than anything intellectual.