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Lumifer comments on Community bias in threat evaluation - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: pianoforte611 17 January 2014 04:01AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 17 January 2014 03:52:03PM 2 points [-]

You're not afraid of global warming and pollution because you are an environmentalist, rather you are an evironmentalist because of your fear of global warning and pollution.

I actually think the former is more true than the latter. You first become an environmentalist (through e.g. social pressure and status-seeking) and then filter your information input to become fearful of global warming and pollution.

Comment author: passive_fist 18 January 2014 07:22:23PM 2 points [-]

How do you define 'environmentalist'?

Comment author: Brillyant 17 January 2014 04:37:17PM 1 point [-]

What percentage of the community who considers UFAI a major risk is only part of that community because of social pressure and status-seeking?

Comment author: Lumifer 17 January 2014 04:48:04PM 1 point [-]

No idea. However I am unaware of any social pressure to join LW. On the other hand, there is a lot of social pressure to, let's say, display environmentalist sensibilities.

Comment author: Brillyant 17 January 2014 08:00:14PM *  0 points [-]

Hm. Perhaps I asked poorly.

Would you say the social pressure as motivation to agree with the severity AI risks becomes significant once one voluntarily joins a community like LW?

If there are, say, 1000 active members, 500 of which believe that UFAI is the most important threat to deal with, how many of those 500 people have authentically arrived at that conclusion by doing the math? And how many are simply playing along because of social pressure, status-seeking, and a sort of Pascal's Wager that benefits them nothing for dissenting?

Comment author: Lumifer 17 January 2014 08:27:20PM 2 points [-]

Would you say the social pressure as motivation to agree with the severity AI risks becomes significant once one voluntarily joins a community like LW?

Yes, provided you want to integrate into the community (and not e.g. play the role of a contrarian).

how many of those 500 people have authentically arrived at that conclusion by doing the math?

I don't know but I would expect very few. Also, you can't arrive at this conclusion by doing math because at this point the likelihood of UFAI is a matter of your priors, not available data.

Comment author: gjm 17 January 2014 07:58:37PM 0 points [-]

Evidence?

Comment author: Lumifer 17 January 2014 08:30:20PM *  3 points [-]

No evidence, just some anecdata as I know a couple of people for whom it happened in this order.

There is no sharp boundary, of course, and there's a bit of a feedback loop there, too. It's kinda like asking whether someone feared hell and because of that became a Christian, or whether she became a Christian and that made her fear hell...

Comment author: gjm 17 January 2014 11:28:06PM 1 point [-]

On that particular example, it seems to me that anyone who fears hell is (at least) most of the way to Christianity already. Assuming it's the Christian hell they fear, of course, but then it's hard to see how fear of some other religion's hell would incline someone to become a Christian.

If you asked the people in question how their opinions evolved, do you think they would give an account that matches yours?

Comment author: Lumifer 21 January 2014 07:20:59PM 0 points [-]

anyone who fears hell is (at least) most of the way to Christianity already.

A lot of religions have much unpleasantness in the afterlife as a possibility :-/

Comment author: gjm 21 January 2014 11:29:33PM 0 points [-]

Which is why I added "Assuming it's the Christian hell they fear", etc.