The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence • Hacker News Board

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#71

Post by solaarphunk » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:00 PM UTC

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…

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 corporate classes in the US, with very little end in sight.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#72

Post by BurningFrog » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:02 PM UTC

Joker_vD wrote: post #11

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 ends don't justify the means" Eh. The ends do justify the means, but only inasmuch as those means actually do help to achieve the ends — astonishingly often, they don't (and rarer, but also often, actually bring you in the opposite direction from those end goals), and so remain unjustified.

I agree, but it's only half of the equation.

Your solution also can't be worse than the problem it solves!

Overly clear example: Killing your noisy neighbors actually achieves the end of a quiet home. But that really doesn't justify it.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#73

Post by janalsncm » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:05 PM UTC

atmavatar wrote: post #65

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 ends don't justify the means" and literal entire religions have been built on this concept. Most religions rely on a supernatural force judging us post-mortem to balance out the rights and wrongs done during life. The problem with this, of course, is that there's zero evidence this force exists, and relying on this force to right the wrongs in life only serves to prevent the masses from attempting to correct t…

> The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

When the British cavalry came to Virginia in 1781, Thomas Jefferson famously fled the governor’s mansion.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#74

Post by sleepybrett » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

arduanika wrote: post #43

kelseyfrog wrote: post #24

War is a mere continuation of policy by other means[1]. When policy through legislation is empirically impotent[2], calls to continue attempts at a failed strategy are indistinguishable from being told, "continue losing." There is a real, undeniable, build up of political tension. When it fails to be released in the legislative arena, it doesn't dissapate. When we point out that, "the quality of life right now is the…

> "fix participatory democracy" Ah yes, a popular codeword for "I did not get my way". There is no electoral majority behind the AI doomer cult. It is not a failure of "democracy" that they haven't gotten what they want. It is a failure of their activism, or just the general unpalatability of their wild ideas, or both. They don't get to throw Molotovs just because they lose.

> There is no electoral majority behind the AI doomer cult.

how can you be sure? has anyone polled it? are they too scared to poll it?

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#75

Post by guelo » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:20 PM UTC

morningsam wrote: post #25

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…

Yudkowsky himself also posted a rebuttal today: https://x.com/ESYudkowsky/article/2043601524815716866

Jeebuz that was long, I only made it through about half of it. But I think he's calling for cold war nuclear treaties style international cooperation. But I believe those mechanisms are broken and unavailable to us for two main reasons:

1. The Western world and especially the US is in the process of destroying the UN and other institutions of international law in order to protect Israel, for reasons that I have tried and failed to understand because the propaganda around it is so dense.

2. The Supreme Court made bribery of politicians legal so now we have AI investors with actual governmental power. All restraint efforts will be blocked by the federal government at minimum for these next 3 crucial years.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#76

Post by handoflixue » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

morningsam wrote: post #25

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…

Yudkowsky himself also posted a rebuttal today: https://x.com/ESYudkowsky/article/2043601524815716866

I found the last paragraph a fairly great summary of a rather long post:

> How certain do you have to be that your child has terminal cancer, before you start killing puppies? 10% sure? 50% sure? 99.9%? The answer is that it doesn't matter how certain you are, killing puppies doesn't cure cancer.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#77

Post by nradov » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

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…

During WWII, the entire Allied leadership was willing to kill millions of Axis children if that's what it took to win the war and force the enemy to surrender unconditionally. There was at least some genocidal intent. Population centers were intentionally bombed to wipe out civilian factory workers. We can argue about whether that was right or wrong but the reality is that it's probably inevitable once armed conflicts involving nation states escalate to an existential level.

“Before we’re through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell.”

-- Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey Jr., 1941

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#78

Post by handoflixue » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:28 PM UTC

arduanika wrote: post #55

eemax wrote: post #30

> The Rational Conclusion of Doomerism Is Violence No it isn't. The most prominent "doomer" has a strong grasp and deep, wholehearted appreciation for the the principles of liberalism and the rule of law: https://x.com/ESYudkowsky/status/2043601524815716866 Which the author of this piece of slop appears to lack.

It is true that only Yudkowsky gets to say what the rational conclusion of his ideas are. Nobody else gets to speculate. Only the pope of rationalism, because he's the rational one here. See? It's right there in the name! > this piece of slop Citation needed. Or maybe we need to update the title of that children's book for internet arguments: Everyone Who Disagrees With Me Is Slop. The Yud post you linked is not slop…

I think it's rather relevant that the community itself rejects the logic you're trying to impose on it. You can straw-man any sort of conclusion on to any sort of philosophy. This will not actually help you much at all if you're trying to predict what people will actually do.

If the only people that reach your conclusion are ones that don't actually subscribe to the philosophy, then it doesn't matter, because no one is actually acting on those conclusions.

And if we want to hold people responsible because others pervert their ideas, then we have to accept that Jesus Christ was a horrific, evil person for preaching "Love thy Neighbor"; just look at the crusades that were somehow the "rational conclusion" of that philosophy!

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#79

Post by tcoff91 » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:28 PM UTC

arduanika wrote: post #38

tcoff91 wrote: post #15

I have a different perspective on this given that I view climate change as the biggest threat we face as a species. I feel like robotics is the only hope we have to be able to scale action against climate change. It's clear that emissions reduction is just not going to happen, and catastrophic warming is inevitable. Therefore we will have to do an extraordinary amount of labor in order to modify our environment to sa…

Upvoted because this is an interesting take, but I disagree at least somewhat. I think you should be wary whenever you've narrowed down your options to, "in order to solve the top-priority problem X, our only hope is solution Y." I agree that some technological solution might be the key to dealing with the climate, and that maybe robots would be part of such a solution, maybe powered by similar techniques as the curr…

I definitely am open to other possible developments and accept that I'm likely wrong just as basically everyone is wrong when predicting the future.

Re: The rational conclusion of doomerism is violence

#80

Post by handoflixue » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

throwaway27448 wrote: post #20

jmull wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you wouldn't. Look at what the molotov cocktail guy accomplished by "taking direct action against a clear and present danger": Nothing, besides casting himself as an extremist nut, increasing the resistance to his viewpoint in the population at large. It's downright dumb to attempt to impose your will via unilateral violence when you aren't in a position to actually complete the goal. Note that that goes whether y…

Obviously, ineffective action will be counterproductive. I recommend effective action.

That's exactly the point every prominent member of the "Doomer" community is making: Violence isn't an effective action; it is a counterproductive action. It is actively destructive.