The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence • Hacker News Board

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#201

Post by handoflixue » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

arduanika wrote: post #189

handoflixue wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every major philosophical group has killed people. Whatever beliefs you profess to hold, people have killed for them. If the presence of one or two deranged outliers is enough to reach reasonable conclusions about a group, then we can write off absolutely every single major contribution to philosophy, and conclude that having a philosophy leads only to violence and murder. You have to understand basic statistics: is…

None of this is responsive to my point in the comment you're responding to. My point is, why would you be talking about a counterfactual world where people did not attempt to kill for this philosophy? Why would you be entertaining a categorical claim like, "the only people that reach your conclusion are ones that don't actually subscribe to the philosophy", when that claim is manifestly violated by a violent act just…

> We can only talk about base rates if you stop trying to invalidate the data.

Exactly! You keep trying to deny the base rates by ignoring the billions of people who don't commit violence, and focusing entirely on the tiny number of outliers who do commit violence.

If "a small number of members are willing to commit violence" is taken as evidence that the whole group is violent, then every Hacker News reader is a terrorist, every Hacker News poster is DEFINITELY a terrorist, and everyone who disagrees with me is a radically violent nihilist that wants to destroy civilization.

I do not thing there is a single large group you could find that has never once had a radical carry out violence in their name - people commit violence for Christianity, for the Ethical Treatment Of Animals, for Peace.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#202

Post by pksebben » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 10:59 PM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #199

pksebben wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all fair points - but what strengths? We've proven ourselves incapable of the most basic social goods for decades now. All the metrics that you might point to as "hey the US is doing fine" (GDP, deficit, sector growth) are concerned specifically with how the state is doing and desperately unconcerned with it's citizens , which I think is a principal issue here.

I think I'm arguing from a position of the quantitative numbers and you're arguing from qualitative vibes, hence why there's a disconnect. But here's why its important to look at the quantitative reality of the numbers going forward--they are going to absolutely change the qualitative populist vibes. In 30 years, even if the AI bubble pops and US growth rates normalize to something low like 2%, the US will have a GDP…

I think I see where we're coming at this from different angles.

If you're going by the numbers and the 'strength of the state' - then yeah, we're doing great. However, neither I nor anyone I know happens to be a part of the class that's holding the baton with all that stuff.

My concern is specifically about how well the citizens are doing, in aggregate, taking into account whether they have democratic control over the reins of governance, whether they are afforded the opportunity to be meaningful contributors to the greater good, education, freedom, enfranchisement.

GDP / capita is meaningless if most of the 'capita' never sees a dime. TBH the structures and institutions that make up a country are just a bunch of bureaucratic role playing from where I stand - they're meaningless without the 'we' of 'we the people'.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#203

Post by arduanika » Sun, Apr 19, 2026, 8:17 PM UTC

handoflixue wrote: post #201

arduanika wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this is responsive to my point in the comment you're responding to. My point is, why would you be talking about a counterfactual world where people did not attempt to kill for this philosophy? Why would you be entertaining a categorical claim like, "the only people that reach your conclusion are ones that don't actually subscribe to the philosophy", when that claim is manifestly violated by a violent act just…

> We can only talk about base rates if you stop trying to invalidate the data. Exactly! You keep trying to deny the base rates by ignoring the billions of people who don't commit violence, and focusing entirely on the tiny number of outliers who do commit violence. If "a small number of members are willing to commit violence" is taken as evidence that the whole group is violent, then every Hacker News reader is a ter…

> ignoring the billions of people who don't commit violence

> taken as evidence that the whole group is violent

Where did I say that?

I am not the one who put forward a categorical statement here. You're the one who appealed to a fantasy world where "the only people that reach your conclusion are ones that don't actually subscribe to the philosophy". The categorical claim is yours, and the error is yours, but rather than own it, you tell yourself a creative story about what I believe, and you continue saying all this inane stuff about how there's violence in every group.

As I have already told you, I am happy to consider all those inane, obvious points. It's important context! But first, I want to see evidence that you are capable of noticing and learning from your own sloppy, wishful thinking here. You have to actually admit that these ideas have consequences, before we can start relativizing them away.