Conversation

This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
Nicholas Schiefer
@nschiefer
Do you find any existential risk concerns compelling? I'm tend to be pretty nervous about "prevent very bad but very unlikely things from happening" arguments, but I also feel various 20th century close calls with nuclear weapons were... way too close for comfort.
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
Nicholas Schiefer
@nschiefer
Gotcha. I'm pretty curious about the partial extinction risk: what makes it basically as bad as total extinction? Is it a "future humans matter much less than current humans" perspective (or a really high discount rate), or something else?
1
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
Nicholas Schiefer
@nschiefer
Replying to
@nschiefer
I don't have the hubris to say that *I* would be that resilient, but I am very grateful that some of my ancestors (some of whom did lose ~their entire family and possibly, like, almost their entire village?) found a way to keep going.
1
1
Nicholas Schiefer
@nschiefer
Replying to
@nschiefer
I've never thought about the possibility that we might just... lose the will/resilience/desire to keep going, rather than gallantly rebuilding. That's some serious stuff, and as you say probably much more likely than total extinction.
1
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
Nicholas Schiefer
@nschiefer
Agreed, "fun to talk about" is a good reason to be suspicious/careful. I think I disagree with "more intellectually stimulating than useful", but that depends entirely on how useful you think it is (and therefore depends on e.g., quantitative intuitions for the level of risk).