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The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

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Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#161

Post by IAmGraydon »

geremiiah wrote: post #101

LLMs are dangerous in other ways (LLM psychosis and false confidence has probably already caused negligent deaths). However, I don't think we are close to a terminator scenario. At the same time, if we ever do create an AGI, and eventually an ASI, I think it would only be a matter of time before the machines take over entirely, and they would probably be the ones which will continue the legacy of our species. Is that…

>Is that bad? Idk.

There's no such thing as bad. It is necessary, though.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#162

Post by TuringTest »

lostmsu wrote: post #160
TuringTest wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I would argue plenty of significant societal changes were caused by the behavior of relatively small number of people

Specific breaking points in history yeah, maybe. But that's possible because they're well connected people near the center of the network.

Those breakpoints are possible because either those few people share a viewpoint held by a large number of their peers, or benefit from knowledge accumulated throughout their civilization. Think how every dictator needs support from a huge following to get their power (and how easy it is to find another dictator to replace them if they die), or how often some breakthrough discoveries are made by multiple people at the same time. There's always a last straw that breaks the camel's back, but the lone wolf hardly ever gets a significant impact on society at large; they need a receptive audience to get any impact. Humans are herd animals.

Following the metaphor, the butterfly effect is only possible because a storm was brewing in the first place; the butterfly wings only decide where it will appear. Butterfly wings just don't have that much energy.

History is told from the perspective of kings, but kings can reign only within a society that believes in their divine right to rule.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#163

Post by vrganj »

TuringTest wrote: post #162
lostmsu wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> I would argue plenty of significant societal changes were caused by the behavior of relatively small number of people Specific breaking points in history yeah, maybe. But that's possible because they're well connected people near the center of the network. Those breakpoints are possible because either those few people share a viewpoint held by a large number of their peers, or benefit from knowledge accumulated thr…

Nah, think of Lenin or Mao as direct counterexamples.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#165

Post by pksebben »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #144
zahlman wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't understand why we have all these adages to convince people that "violence is always wrong", while I'm sure some at least some of the people who say that are actively engaged in building machines designed to kill people. First: because trusted people having such weaponry is, in expected value, believed to lead to less total violence. Second: because not all such violence is part of what you presumably h…

> First: because trusted people having such weaponry is, in expected value, believed to lead to less total violence. Unfortunately "trusted people" don't grow on trees... but those who do grow to the highest positions of power, with the most destructive weaponry under their control, ask for trust with stuff like: "No foreign wars", "I'll end that conflict on day one"... "after bringing prices back down". With that sa…

>> trust in the ideas and people who control it,

This right here is the crux of the issue. I don't even trust my own computer without fairly deep introspective tools, and what we're given for 'leadership' is 'this totally outdated and opaque system of voting for corporate shill A or corporate shill B is totally trustworthy! You obviously cannot think that you could get by without some asshat running your whole society so be thankful'.

Direct democracy, liquid democracy - whatever you pick that removes the middle man will be a marked improvement from day 1. We do not need these people deciding what's best for us. I'm not sure we ever did.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#166

Post by pksebben »

pembrook wrote: post #158
sylos wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I'm not going to go to bat for Mao(1), but I think you're underplaying the body count that capitalist countries have had - this is kind of easy to do because a lot of the damage that we do is obfuscated behind proxies. Besides the obvious and direct war crimes like Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, and now I guess Iran again, there's the second order stuff like Israel's Bad Neighbor Syndrome (which we have enabled financially for basically the duration), Pinochet who we put in charge, heck - pick any country south of the border and we've done some damage there at least once. Then there's the spiderweb of damage that flows out to the global south continuously through NAFTA and similar foreign policy. I suppose the principal difference is that we externalize a lot of our violence (and somehow are shocked when it comes back to bite us that we trained Osama Bin Laden).

Nobody's asking for Maoist China, I think mostly we're clamoring for something closer to Norway. I'm sure plenty of people would be happy to settle for UK-style socialized services but even those folks get lambasted for being "too far left" too so whaddyagonnado.

1 - I think he and 'bolshevism' are a bit of a strawman here anyway, as I've not heard a ton of pro-Mao people but a TON of people who identify as leftists - they are not the same thing

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#167

Post by janalsncm »

hollerith wrote: post #117
matthewdgreen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eliezer Yudkowsky has gone so far as to say that it might be ok to kill most of humanity (excepting a "viable reproduction population") to stop AI. If that's not just talk, then this line reasoning only gives you a few possible modes of action. I would not be worried about the people with Molotov cocktails, but I'd be very worried about bio terrorism.

>Eliezer Yudkowsky has gone so far as to say that it might be ok to kill most of humanity (excepting a "viable reproduction population") to stop AI That doesn't sound like a non-misleading summary of anything he would say. Do you have a quote or a link?

Apparently he deleted the tweet but there are screenshots and he apologized.

https://betweendrafts.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/survivo...

https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1642229374656348161

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#168

Post by pembrook »

pksebben wrote: post #166
pembrook wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I'm not going to go to bat for Mao(1), but I think you're underplaying the body count that capitalist countries have had - this is kind of easy to do because a lot of the damage that we do is obfuscated behind proxies. Besides the obvious and direct war crimes like Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, and now I guess Iran again, there's the second order stuff like Israel's Bad Neighbor Syndrome (which we have enabled financially for…

> I think mostly we're clamoring for something closer to Norway. I'm sure plenty of people would be happy to settle for UK-style socialized services

Norway is a Saudi Arabia-style petrostate just with white people aesthetics (Saudi Arabia is also socialist). A better analogue might be Sweden/Finland, also tiny socialist Lutheran countries but with no massive oil reserves.

I write this while currently living in Finland. Your understanding of European socialism is stuck in the early 2000s. Things are going terribly here (and also in the UK). The welfare states throughout Europe are all in various states of slow collapse due to the public sector eating the private sector and climbing government spending as percentage of GDP not seen since the USSR (we're well over 50-60%, communist China is only at 35%). Deficits are ballooning.

Our unemployment rate is 3X that of the US and still climbing. We have no growth in the economy, no population growth, and no productivity growth. Pensions/benefits have been overpromised and will require decades of pain to resolve. Things are bleak and similar throughout the rest of Europe. I would update my priors if I were you.

Furthermore, the only reason socialism ever appeared to work here was due to us being ethnically homogenous and tiny. Government's lack of competitive pressure can be somewhat overcome by social pressure from the government official being your neighbor Pekka. It's harder to grift when everybody knows who you are and can see your new Mercedes. The US is not tiny and not ethnically homogenous.

Our system isn't even working here anymore, and it absolutely would not work in a massive, diverse, low-trust society like the US. You would do much better to lean into your strengths than to chase early 2000s European socialism, which was in fact a mirage brought about by a one-time economic boom due to the fall of iron curtain and EU integration.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#169

Post by solaarphunk »

zahlman wrote: post #133
solaarphunk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a version of individualism vs the state. Much of western society has become increasingly confused about what violence is acceptable, let alone who should be allowed to commit violence, or have a monopoly on violence. If we can't agree on that baseline, then its quite obvious that we'll continue to have an escalation in the types of violence that we've seen in the past few years, against the political and…

That seems to me like a somewhat odd way to put it. From where I stand, the large majority of objection to "state monopoly on violence" comes from those who otherwise express a strongly collectivist worldview.

Like I said, very confused.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#170

Post by classified »

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…

So according to you the War for Independence of the US against England never happened, and it would have been completely ineffective if it had happened.

Same goes for the French Revolution. The list could go on.

I think you're overly idealistic.

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