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Nick_Novitski comments on Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate - Less Wrong
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I can't help but think that those activities aren't going to do much to save humanity. I don't want to send you into an existential crisis or anything but maybe you should tune down your job description. "Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens™" is maybe acceptable for Superman. It might be affably egotistical for someone who does preventive counter-terrorism re: experimental bioweapons. "Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens one academic conference at a time" doesn't really do it for me.
Plus wishing for all people to be under the rule of a god-like totalitarian sounds to me like the best way to destroy humanity.
Jack wrote on 09 September 2009 05:54:25PM:
I don't wish for it. That part was inside parentheses with a question mark. I merely suspect it MAY be needed.
Please explain to me how the destruction follows from the rule of a god-like totalitarian.
Thank you for your time and attention.
With respect and high regard,
Rick Schwall, Ph.D.
Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens (seizing responsibility, (even if I NEVER get on the field)
Maybe some Homo Sapiens would survive, humanity wouldn't. Are the human animals in 1984 "people"? After Winston Smith dies is there any humanity left?
I can envision a time when less freedom and more authority is necessary for our survival. But a god-like totalitarian pretty much comes out where extinction does in my utility function.
Oh. My mistake. When you wrote, "Plus wishing for all people to be under the rule of a god-like totalitarian sounds to me like the best way to destroy humanity.", I read:
It just never occurred to me you meant, "a god-like totalitarian pretty much comes out where extinction does in my utility function".
Are you willing to consider that totalitarian rule by a machine might be a whole new thing, and quite unlike totalitarian rule by people?
IIRC, Winston Smith doesn't die; by the end, his spirit is completely broken and he's practically a living ghost, but alive.
Jack wrote on 09 September 2009 05:54:25PM :
I hear that. I wasn't clear. I apologise.
I DON'T KNOW what I can do to turn humanity's course. And, I decline to be one more person who uses that as an excuse to go back to the television set. Those activities are part of my search for a place where I can make a difference.
... but not acceptable from a mere man who cares, eh?
(Oh, all right, I admit, the ™ was tongue-in-cheek!)
Skip down to END BOILERPLATE if and only if you've read version v44m
First, please read this caveat: Please do not accept anything I say as True.
Ever.
I do write a lot of propositions, without saying, "In My Opinion" before each one. It can sound preachy, like I think I've got the Absolute Truth, Without Error. I don't completely trust anything I have to say, and I suggest you don't, either.
Second, I invite you to listen (read) in an unusual way. "Consider it": think WITH this idea for a while. There will be plenty of time to refute it later. I find that, if I START with, "That's so wrong!", I really weaken my ability to "pan for the gold".
If you have a reaction (e.g. "That's WRONG!"), please gently save it aside for later. For just a while, please try on the concept, test drive it, use the idea in your life. Perhaps you'll see something even beyond what I offered.
There will plenty of time to criticize, attack, and destroy it AFTER you've "panned for the gold". You won't be missing an opportunity.
Third, I want you to "get" what I offered. When you "get it", you have it. You can pick it up and use it, and you can put it down. You don't need to believe it or understand it to do that. Anything you BELIEVE is "glued to your hand"; you can't put it down.
-=-= END BOILERPLATE version 44m
I think we may have different connotations. I'm going to reluctantly use an analogy, but it's just a temporary crutch. Please drop it as soon as you get how I'm using the word 'saving'.
If I said, "I'm playing football," I wouldn't be implying that I'm a one-man team, or that I'm the star, or that the team always loses when I'm not there. Rigorously, it only means that I'm playing football.
However, it is possible to play football for the camaraderie, or the exercise, or to look good, or to avoid losing. A person can play football to win. Regardless of the position played. It's about attitude, commitment, and responsibility SEIZED rather than reluctantly accepted.
I DECLARE that I am saving humanity from Homo Sapiens. That's a declaration, a promise, not a description subject to True / probability / False. I'm playing to win.
Maybe I'll never be allowed to get on the field. I remember the movie Rudy, about Dan Ruettiger. THAT is what it is to be playing football in the face of being a little guy. That points toward what it is to be Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens in the face of no evidence and no agreement.
You could give me a low probability of ever making a difference . But before you do, ask yourself, "What will this cause?"
It occurs to be that this little sub-thread beginning with "Mostly, I study. " illustrates what Eliezer was pointing out in "Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate.".
You, too, can be Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens. You start by saying so.
The clock is ticking.
With respect and high regard,
Rick Schwall, Ph.D.
Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens (seizing responsibility, even if I NEVER get on the field)