Nick Szabo  🔑

"Beware of...beliefs..about very improbable outcomes that could have very large positive or negative consequences ... " History is usually a far more reliable guide to future events than such speculation. https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2012/07/pascals-scams.html …

I agree, tho I'm amenable to the position on, say, climate change that if the possible negative outcome is existential then you should probably take it seriously... I'd also wonder what it would look like if this were applied to people worrying about US hyperinflation spiral

It's long-shot speculative "existential threats" that are most likely to be Pascal Scams. That said, one should be concerned about the less speculative aspects of CO2 rise, including as I understand it global warming, fertilization effects (both good & bad), and ocean acidity.

& don't get me started on the supposed "existential threats" that are not remotely close to any such thing. Extreme death & suffering still usually fall far short of an actual threat to our species or even to civilization, but these very different things are constantly confused.