S-risks: Why they are the worst existential risks, and how to prevent them

Kaj_Sotala

Is it still a facepalm given the rest of the sentence? "So, s-risks are roughly as severe as factory farming, but with an even larger scope." The word "severe" is being used in a technical sense (discussed a few paragraphs earlier) to mean something like "per individual badness" without considering scope.

Facepalm was a severe understatement, this quote is a direct ticket to the loony bin. I recommend poking your head out of the bubble once in a while -- it's a whole world out there. For example, some horrible terrible no-good people -- like me -- consider factory farming to be an efficient way of producing a lot of food at reasonable cost.

This sentence reads approximately as "Literal genocide (e.g. Rwanda) is roughly as severe as using a masculine pronoun with respect to a nonspecific person, but with an even larger scope".

The steeliest steelman that I can come up with is that you're utterly out of touch with the Normies.

1[anonymous]9y

I think the claim that s-risks are roughly as severe as factory farming "per individual badness" is unsubstantiated. But it is reasonable to claim that experiencing either would be worse than death, "hellish". Remember, Hell has circles.

1fubarobfusco9y

The section presumes that the audience agrees wrt veganism. To an audience who isn't on board with EA veganism, that line comes across as the "arson, murder, and jaywalking" trope.

31

S-risks: Why they are the worst existential risks, and how to prevent them

31

31

31

S-risks: Why they are the worst existential risks, and how to prevent them

31

31