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gwern comments on Why could you be optimistic that the Singularity is Near? - Less Wrong Discussion

22 Post author: gwern 14 July 2012 11:33PM

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Comment author: gwern 17 July 2012 02:44:24PM 4 points [-]

That doesn't seem even remotely likely; as I understand it, the Earth has been much hotter than now many times without turning into Venus.

Comment author: [deleted] 27 July 2012 02:43:30PM *  0 points [-]

It doesn't have to turn the Earth into Venus for unusually-rapid climate shifts to destabilize geopolitics badly, exceed system tolerances in infrastructure, consume an ever-growing portion of the economy either by increased loss and waste or in efforts at mitigation, and thereby effectively amp up the power of many other forms of global X-risk (or just contribute directly to X-risk by numerous small factors, none of which would by itself be capable of overwhelming the system, but which collectively undermine it).