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The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

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Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#151

Post by eudamoniac »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #53
MostlyStable wrote: post #8

It is completely coherent to both think that an extremely bad thing is coming, and yet that does not justify any particular action. "The ends don't justify the means" and literal entire religions have been built on this concept. It is not irrational or incoherent to believe that even something as serious as extinction does not justify arbitrary action. Someone _may_ decide that it does, but it is not a necessary conc…

The older I get, the more I get the sneaking suspicion that statements like "the ends don't justify the means" and "violence is always the wrong answer" are, at best, wildly logically inconsistent in any society at any time, and at worst, designed to ensure only a very few people in power can commit violence. An ongoing conflict has resulted in the violent deaths of literally many thousands of children. The people wh…

You are right, and it's like someone else said, a morality story. Of course violence is sometimes the answer, the ends do justify the means if the ends are important enough, etc. They are indoctrinated and brainwashed, in the purest sense of the word, into not even considering these ideas.

I hold it to be self evident that political violence is the only potential action that the people of North Korea could take to save themselves. Peaceful protest and voting, obviously, does not work. A massive mob rising up and stabbing dear leader with a dinner knife, at the cost of probably hundreds or thousands of themselves, might work.

To deny the above paragraph is incoherent. All governments are somewhere on the scale of justifiably being overthrown with violence. It is a valid option, and how tyrannical the government has to be before the option is justifiable is a matter of opinion. All unpretended shock and horror at the sentiment is either by the sheltered or by the afraid.

People know this subconsciously. How many stories of righteous revolution have we seen and cheered for? Shrek, Hunger Games, The Matrix, Braveheart, Dune, Star Wars; everyone knows these protagonists killing government officials are in the right. They will never make the connection, but they know it, and the intellectually honest will acknowledge it. Are we ruled by such different beasts than those characters are?

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#152

Post by kelseyfrog »

arduanika wrote: post #149
kelseyfrog wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody cares for the AI doomers Which is precisely why they've resorted to violence. We can do better than denigrating positions as "hobbyhorse." HN deserves better than that.

Fair enough. Retry: What I'm objecting to is your brilliant, insightful point, to which you are attached enough that you've injected it into this thread where it is, by your own admission, irrelevant. They're resorting to violence because they're unpopular, not because democracy failed to do its job here.

My dear friend, this is a discussion board where people share their takes. It's simply a take.

We can attempt to deduce the root cause, but please don't assume we're on different epistemic footing. It's speculation and that's fine.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#153

Post by irishcoffee »

tcoff91 wrote: post #32
irishcoffee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.howeandhowe.com/civil/thermite The firefighting robots of which you speak already exist.

Hell yeah, those look awesome. I look forward to the autonomous versions that don't require fully manual remote operation. It'd be great if coordinators could have like an RTS-style view and command these like they're starcraft units.

… they can.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#154

Post by hollerith »

kansface wrote: post #116
Aurornis wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't agree with Yudkowsky, but I think there's certainly a chance that he's right about AI destroying humanity. I just don't think the likelihood of that happening is as high as he thinks it is. But there certainly is a chance. This is the rhetorical trick that LessWrongers (Yudkowsky's site) have settled on for decades: They have justified everything around the premise that there's a chance, however small, that…

It is a reimagining of Pascal’s Wager. On the original front, I don’t see the neo-Rationalists converting to Christianity en masse.

Pascal's wager is an argument that even if the probability of God's existence is very small, it is still rational to believe in God and live accordingly. Yudkowsky is the author of a blog post titled "Pascal's mugging", which likewise involves a small probability of an extremely bad outcome, but that blog post is completely silent about the dangerousness of AI research. (The post points out a paradox in decision theory, i.e., the theory that flows from the equation expected_utility = summation over every possible outcome O of U(O) * P(O).)

No one to my knowledge has ever argued that AI research should be prohibited because of a very small probability of its turning out extremely badly. This is entirely a straw man set up by people who want AI research to continue. Yudkowsky argues that if AI research is allowed to continue, then the natural expected outcome will be very bad (probably human extinction, but more exotic terrible outcomes are also possible) [1]. There are others who argue that no team or organization anywhere should engage in any program of development that has a 10% or more chance of ending the human race without there first being an extensive public debate followed by a vote in which everyone can participate, and this is their objection to any continuance of AI research.

[1] But don't take my word for it: here is Yudkowsky writing in Apr 2022 in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/j9Q8bRmwCgXRYAgcJ/: "When Earth’s prospects are that far underwater in the basement of the logistic success curve, it may be hard to feel motivated about continuing to fight, since doubling our chances of survival will only take them from 0% to 0%. That's why I would suggest reframing the problem - especially on an emotional level - to helping humanity die with dignity, or rather, since even this goal is realistically unattainable at this point, die with slightly more dignity than would otherwise be counterfactually obtained."

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#155

Post by thunderfork »

pembrook wrote: post #135
jjk166 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The is just survivorship bias. Violence sits at the root of ALL human societies. The vast majority throughout history have failed or are currently failing. That only strengthens the argument that violence is sometimes the answer. It doesn't matter that it's not always the right answer, the fact is sometimes it has been, and no society has ever managed to survive without choosing it at some point or another. Indeed,…

Sure, you can't monopolize violence under the state (and enforce laws) without the state demonstrating its willingness to use said violence (ie. forcibly put people who violate in prison or use actual violence against them if they resist). But OP was referring to political violence...which...how do I put this delicately...let's just say political polarization has led certain very-online members of the US populist-lef…

>OP was referring to political violence

The dichotomy of "political" and "apolitical" violence is a false one, and one of the worst thought-terminating clichees of the 21st century. It's telling that "political violence" always seems to refer to violence that isn't the result of the processes of democratic politics.

Nobody's calling out cops shooting protestors with "less lethal" rounds or ICE officers riddling cars with bullets "political violence", for some reason.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#157

Post by hollerith »

thegrim33 wrote: post #115

The LLM doomerism is just one arm of the general "us vs them" strategy - defining a group of people as the others who are the bad guys, defining yourself as the good guys, constantly fostering hate against the others, finding ways to give your group rationale for why they have the moral high ground, all of it in the end an act to gain power/influence/money for the people orchestrating it. The anti-AI angle is just th…

>I'm willing to bet any amount of money that 99.99% of AI doomers identify with the same extreme end of the political spectrum.

Good: a man willing to put his money where his mouth is! However many dollars you put up, I will put up $10. (I.e., I will give you 10:1 odds.) How much do you bet? Who do you suggest as arbiter in case one is needed?

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#158

Post by pembrook »

sylos wrote: post #148
pembrook wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can't monopolize violence under the state (and enforce laws) without the state demonstrating its willingness to use said violence (ie. forcibly put people who violate in prison or use actual violence against them if they resist). But OP was referring to political violence...which...how do I put this delicately...let's just say political polarization has led certain very-online members of the US populist-lef…

My guy, the vast majority of political violence is committed by the right. It's not zero from the left, but it is much less.

I see you've addressed none of my points and instead were triggered by my suggestion your team may have some bad people on it.

Yes, in recent times in the US right wing violence has been more prevalent. But HN is not a right wing place, it's a left filter bubble like reddit and leftist violence is a growing phenomenon in US politics. Arguing against the right wing here would be like clapping along with a giant crowd, providing zero interesting discussion. The bolshevik revival in the world's wealthiest country is far more interesting to discuss.

Also historically, we have to remember that the left's utopian socialist vision (communism) is responsible for the absolute highest body counts, including 30 million starved to death and thousands of incidents of cannibalism in just Mao's great leap forward alone.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#159

Post by pembrook »

thunderfork wrote: post #155
pembrook wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can't monopolize violence under the state (and enforce laws) without the state demonstrating its willingness to use said violence (ie. forcibly put people who violate in prison or use actual violence against them if they resist). But OP was referring to political violence...which...how do I put this delicately...let's just say political polarization has led certain very-online members of the US populist-lef…

>OP was referring to political violence The dichotomy of "political" and "apolitical" violence is a false one, and one of the worst thought-terminating clichees of the 21st century. It's telling that "political violence" always seems to refer to violence that isn't the result of the processes of democratic politics. Nobody's calling out cops shooting protestors with "less lethal" rounds or ICE officers riddling cars…

I don't disagree with the idea that violence is fundamentally morally questionable. But humans haven't evolved to the point where we can function collaboratively without the threat of it from somewhere. We're animals.

The problem with believing all violence is illegitimate (even that which has been democratically granted to the state to enforce laws), is that society breaks down and loses its legitimacy if you remove this enforcement aspect.

The alternative to a monopoly on violence centralized in a democratic government is not zero violence. The alternative is decentralized violence (anarchy). I think everyone on both sides would find this far less desirable.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#160

Post by lostmsu »

TuringTest wrote: post #68
vrganj wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe democracy is fundamentally flawed because the demos is? How should one act in such a situation?

Who gets to say that the demos is fundamentally flawed? Each in-group have their own opinions on what's a flaw. Society evolves through epiphenomena caused by the behaviour of the majority; the fact that some minorities view that evolution as 'flawed' cannot change that evolution, unless they're able to influence the majority to also see it that way. Now, democracy is essentially a way for everybody to broadcast thei…

> Society evolves through epiphenomena caused by the behaviour of the majority

I would argue plenty of significant societal changes were caused by the behavior of relatively small number of people. Even more so when you include instances of masterful use of the butterfly effect.

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