Roko comments on Intelligence enhancement as existential risk mitigation - Less Wrong

17 [deleted] 15 June 2009 07:35PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (198)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Psychohistorian 16 June 2009 01:40:16AM *  10 points [-]

I think that most people who do not have severe cognitive deficiencies are capable of understanding what "efficient charities" are. I think that most people are quite capable of understanding the statement, "Ethanol will waste a lot of money and will still generate as much (or more) pollution than gasoline. To top it off, it will also raise the price of food products, both for you and for people who will actually starve as a result." Most issues like this, one can figure out what's going on by reading wikipedia for half an hour. Perhaps that takes a high IQ, but from my experience, when people are given clear and accurate arguments, they are generally capable of getting them. The problem is that they never bother seeking out decent arguments. They either just don't care, or they seek out arguments that support whatever their beliefs happen to be.

In other words, the problem is not that people are stupid. The problem is that people simply don't give a damn. If you don't fix that, I doubt raising IQ will be anywhere near as helpful as you may think.

Comment deleted 16 June 2009 01:19:21PM *  [-]
Comment author: MichaelBishop 16 June 2009 09:40:49PM *  6 points [-]

More detail would be wonderful!

Comment author: RobinHanson 17 June 2009 03:24:02AM 5 points [-]

Well be sure to clarify if they were really trying to understand. People who do not want to understand can look a lot like people unable to understand.

Comment author: Psychohistorian 16 June 2009 06:53:13PM 0 points [-]

Does this mean they don't understand, they don't care, or they don't share your utility function? The fact that they disagree does not mean they don't understand.