From the topic, in this case "selection effects in estimates of global catastrophic risk". If you casually mention you don't particularly care about humans or that personally killing a bunch of them may be an effective strategy the discussion is effectively hijacked. So it doesn't matter that you don't wish to do anybody harm.
I can't control what other people say but I didn't at any point say that I don't care about humans, nor did I say that personally killing anyone is a good idea ever.
my main point was that the probabilities of various xRisks don't matter. My side point was that if it turned out that UFAI was a significant risk then politically enforced luddism would be the logical response. I like to make that point once in awhile in the hopes that SingInst will realize the wisdom of it.
Here's a poser that occurred to us over the summer, and one that we couldn't really come up with any satisfactory solution to. The people who work at the Singularity Institute have a high estimate of the probability that an Unfriendly AI will destroy the world. People who work for http://nuclearrisk.org/ have a very high estimate of the probability that a nuclear war will destroy the world (by their estimates, if you are American and under 40, then nuclear war is the single most likely way in which you might die next year).
It seems like there are good reasons to take these numbers seriously, because Eliezer is probably the world expert on AI risk, and Hellman is probably the world expert on nuclear risk. However, there's a problem - Eliezer is an expert on AI risk because he believes that AI risk is a bigger risk than nuclear war. Similarly, Hellman chose to study nuclear risks and not AI risk I because he had a higher than average estimate of the threat of nuclear war.
It seems like it might be a good idea to know what the probability of each of these risks is. Is there a sensible way for these people to correct for the fact that the people studying these risks are those that have high estimate of them in the first place?