Two things that can both be true: 1. The world is getting better, by most metrics of human well-being 2. The risk of a major catastrophe is going up over time Yet I often see ppl try to dismiss 2 by saying "The doomsayers are wrong, things are getting better, [argument for 1]"
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This seems orthogonal to the debate, though. The fact that 1 makes us better equipped to cope w/2, doesn't mean 2 wouldn't still be devastating. Like, maybe we could recover faster from a nuclear war in 2018 than if it happened in 1818, but nuclear war would still be a huge deal
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We're currently living happily in what is, considered from the vantage point of our poor ancestors, any number of
#2s. We, present day, are the poor ancestors of the future. That fact is not orthogonal to whether things we think would be devastating would be so to them. - 5 more replies
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(Betting on optimism is also a great way to bet on surviving Arbitrarily Exotic Risks, since to bet on the specific risk I probably have to be right regarding timeframe and nature of the risk. I’m not that smart, so instead I bet that no future is harmed by economic growth.)
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This is foolish. Given an infinite danger, i.e. extiction, equal of probability the risk will be infinite, too. Equal of any nr. 1 progress. A nuclear war e.g. (not possible in 1818!) is possible and extremely lethal. Thus, avoiding risks is better than managing risk.
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Another example, esp. for you: Any software improvement of any kind and of any rate is pointless, if you lose electric power forever.
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“As a community” is one of the things that is arguably breaking down though
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