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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(It's an especially pointless response because just about everyone I know who's worried about 2 already agrees w/1)
19 replies 8 retweets 172 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @juliagalef
The steelman version of optimism that
#2ians give insufficient credit to is that even given #2 is true #1 is outrunning it. Put another way: given any harm you care about, would you rather face it as a community with the wealthy/technology/GDP available in 2018 or in 1818?5 replies 2 retweets 7 likes -
Replying to @patio11
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
2 replies 0 retweets 9 likes -
Replying to @juliagalef
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.3 replies 1 retweet 3 likes
Considering 2 as 2a (cost spread of catastrophic event rn) x 2b (risk of catastrophic event rn), it's plausible to me that 1 is improving while 2a & 2b are both worsening. But even if you think 2a is increasingly mitigated by 1, 2b does seem largely orthogonal to 1 & on the rise
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