So I’m willing to admit this question isn’t being asked in good
faith, but how many folks who believe in AI singularity and the eventual
robot uprising also didn’t think COVID was a big deal? Do these people
treat real existential threats like climate change and more global
pandemics with the same amount of sincerity as they do with AI?
The rationalists all took Covid pretty seriously, they even congratulated themselves on being ahead on the curve on it. (Which is true, but for some reason LW's don't seem to being up that Scott lied about how you should stop smoking because it helps with covid because he just thought that was a good white lie to tell. While there was no proof of that at all. (There even later was proof of smoking helping with cov prevention, but that paper had some serous flaws last I heard ([retracted](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/apr/22/scientific-paper-claiming-smokers-less-likely-to-acquire-covid-retracted-over-tobacco-industry-links))).
Climate change otoh they don't really talk that much about, [Scott even dismisses it in his beige ways](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/01/what-happened-to-90s-environmentalism/). Verdict: [Alarmist](https://twitter.com/nymetrowx/status/1666504036961378306), gotta love me some hyper-normalization.
E: I also remember the anti-sneerclubber who came here to sneer at us and took offense to me saying something like 'the world is literally on fire' which they declared as future hyperbole. I was talking about India reaching 50°C at that time.
Anyway you got to remember part of the feeling behind Rationalism is being a heterodox contrarian. Before covid pandemics were not things people talked about, so they take it seriously, climate change otoh, people talk about, so they dismiss it.
> Which is true,
Not really. Lots of people were working on dealing with it as a problem around the same time. I spent most of my Jan and Feb 2020 at work on the precise problem of making sure the whole company could work from home at the drop of a hat. Worked, too.
Ow a lot of people were early, it doesn't make them special in any way. I meant it like that. I didn't mean they were the first, just that re covid they took it seriously. Our dutch hospitals etc were also ahead of the curve initially. And then the whole governments decided to just drop the ball and now everybody declares it is over, and we are just going to accept the early deaths, disabilities, etc.
Of course, even if Rationalism is ahead of the curve or late doesn't matter, as 99%+ of what they do is blog, which is used by rich shitheads to justify what they already wanted to do. Cannot recall any of them to use their position of relative influence to try and convince Musk he is an idiot for example.
E: forgot to mention that after we also took it seriously, for some reason [the story from some Rationalist became that due to sneerclub stuff was worse re covid.](https://old.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/jf269w/ratbrags_the_only_reason_anyone_would_ever/) (The article linked there is a good example of the whole 'focus on AI scaremongering while ignoring other elephants in the room' thing, look at the last line) So yeah stuff still was weird.
The most I've seen from the crowd this sub targets is paying lip service to the general idea that collective disasters should be taken seriously and then a transition to "and the AI apocalypse is the greatest looming disaster of them all, give us money to talk about it more".
As a civilization, we lost the sense that God loves us by losing the
sense we love ourselves. For when we become Creators, we do not do so
lovingly. We understand our creation as a tool, a danger, a weapon. We
are terrified our creation will eat of the Tree of Knowledge and make
its own moral choices rather than follow our dictates. And then we will
try to disempower our creation, alienating it from us for its attempt to
become like ourselves. We are that asshole Yahweh from Eden. We have
come full circle.
For what it’s worth, I do enjoy the sci-fi concept of human-robot
conflict being driven by human fear that our creations will continue the
classic cycle, supplanting us as masters of Earth in the same way that
we supplanted the gods of Olympus, who supplanted the titans of Kronos,
who was himself a usurper.
They are unequivocally, as a cultish community, coming in a full circle. Last one to do so has to tell Roko’s Basilisk they opposed them.
Oh so NOW we’re reading the Bible, huh
So I’m willing to admit this question isn’t being asked in good faith, but how many folks who believe in AI singularity and the eventual robot uprising also didn’t think COVID was a big deal? Do these people treat real existential threats like climate change and more global pandemics with the same amount of sincerity as they do with AI?
BECOME AS GODS
Here’s the caption context:
– https://medium.com/@myartman/the-god-who-did-not-believe-in-itself-8dd6fe01dbc1
For what it’s worth, I do enjoy the sci-fi concept of human-robot conflict being driven by human fear that our creations will continue the classic cycle, supplanting us as masters of Earth in the same way that we supplanted the gods of Olympus, who supplanted the titans of Kronos, who was himself a usurper.
I just don’t treat it as fact.
- Sir Basil Kooks, professional quote maker and basilisk handler