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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.
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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?
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Nicholas Schiefer
@nschiefer
I agree that partial extinction is real, and that existential risk is uniquely, uh, "fun" to talk about, and therefore requires extra hygiene. I think reasonable people can disagree about the worth of living after losing e.g., most of a family.
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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).
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