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Please don't do this. Over the past year we have had tremendous success in being taken more seriously. Please don't make us look silly.

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Street action "Stop existential risks!", Union square, San Francisco, September 27, 2014 at 2:00 PM

by turchin

20th Sep 2014

1 min read

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Existential risks are the risks of human extinction. A global catastrophe will happen most likely because of the new technologies such as biotech, nanotech, and AI, along with several other risks: runaway global warming, and nuclear war. Sir Martin Rees estimates these risks to have a fifty percent probability in the 21^st century.

We must raise the awareness of impending doom and make the first ever street action against the possibility of human extinction. Our efforts could help to prevent these global catastrophes from taking place. I suggest we meet in Union square, San Francisco, September 27, 2014 at 2:00 PM in order to make a short and intense photo session with the following slogans:

Stop Existential Risks!

No Human Extinction!

AI must be Friendly!

No Doomsday Weapons!

Ebola must die!

Prevent Global Catastrophe!

These slogans will be printed in advance, but more banners are welcome. I have previous experience with organizing actions for immortality and funding of life extension near Googleplex, the White house in DC, and Burning Man, and I know this street action, taking place on September 27^th, is both legal and a fun way to express our points of view.

Organized by Alexey Turchin and Longevity Party.

Update: Photos from the action.

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[-]Paul Crowley10y410

Please don't do this. Over the past year we have had tremendous success in being taken more seriously. Please don't make us look silly.

[-]Dorikka10y260

Thanks for your effort. However, I agree with Ciphergoth that this particular tactic is likely to result in a loss of reputation in those circles that may actually impact x-risks - as a result, I think that it will indirectly increase net x-risk. I feel somewhat awkward advising against this because you've already made a public effort towards organizing it, but I am pretty sure that it will have a negative impact.

Consider that one of the odd quirks of human psychology is that people often consider the primary argument made in favor of a proposition to be the best argument for that proposition - namely, they often assume that you've made the best argument that you can. However, this setting will not enable you to make a very good argument at all - you can't overcome very large gaps of inferential distance with 3-4 words on a sign. Even people who might otherwise be receptive to the importance of x-risks will remember "we saw some people waving signs around on the street about that a few days ago" - they'll be less receptive than they would have been otherwise to more rigorous arguments because you've placed yourself in the same reference class as people with much-less-defensible positions.

I appreciate the effort that you've put into this - the whole "get people working together to achieve something" is arguably something that we could substantially improve at as a community. However, this is a case where some well-intended actions will have a negative impact compared to no action at all. (Keep in mind, though, that "no action at all" isn't the relevant counterfactual - what else could you do with the time to generate fuzzies and/or utilons?)

[-]John_Maxwell10y70

What does LW think of the idea of standing on the street with a sign that says "Talk to me if you like thought experiments" and trying to develop the skill of quickly overcoming inferential gaps with passerby, with a view to improving entry-level explanations of concepts like x-risk in general? If this guy can become a millionaire selling vegetable peelers, it seems like one might be able to develop a street pitch for effective altruism good enough that if one spends 8 hours standing in a public place in a high-IQ city pitching people, one creates one additional effective altruist on expectation.

[-][anonymous]10y80

Think of who else does street work like this, and the signals it may give to your target audience. I would worry that such an approach would be mistaken for Scientology street recruiting (compare it to "Discover your true potential" and other such come-ons for their introductory "personality test"), or similar street work by some other religious group, and might be avoided by exactly those people you might wish to reach.

In the evangelical days of my youth, this sort of thing is exactly what we were encouraged to do: get strangers talking about a "deep" subject that provided a natural transition to just how bleak things are without god, the fulfillment of salvation, and so on and so forth.

[-]Paul Crowley10y80

Why would we do anything on the streets? Compared to a variety of online means, they're an incredibly inefficient way to reach the people most likely to be receptive to anything we want to talk about.

[-]John_Maxwell10y50

Hm. People seem to take ideas more seriously if they're presented by flesh-and-blood people, and you get quicker feedback loops. Also potentially serves the additional purposes of improving social skills and finding one friends and romantic partners. What do you think the most effective online means are?

[-]alienist10y40

It would be an improvement over turchin's plan of framing this as a protest.

[-]ChristianKl10y00

Consider that one of the odd quirks of human psychology is that people often consider the primary argument made in favor of a proposition to be the best argument for that proposition - namely, they often assume that you've made the best argument that you can.

While that's true pushing the Overton window can also be useful. It's difficult to say what actions do.

[-]alienist10y00

Well, is the protest saying anything that isn't already within the Overton window?

[-]ChristianKl10y00

The fact that there real people who worry about having friendly AI and other Xrisk concerns isn't well within the window.

[-]alienist10y00

I don't think anyone would call you an extremist for worrying about these things.

[-]ChristianKl10y10

But that's not only what the window is about. Serious people are generally not seen as worrying about those things and a lot of people don't know that there are people who worry about UFAI.

[-]turchin10y-20

A lot of people went to streets to protest against nuclear weapons which were considered existential risks, and it resulted in nuclear disarmament in 1980. See photo here: http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/hbomb/page_18.shtml

Any important topic has street actions, Greenpeace, PETA, you name it. If you don't have street actions it means that no body is interested in the problem.

[-]Salemicus10y50

A lot of people went to streets to protest against nuclear weapons which were considered existential risks, and it resulted in nuclear disarmament in 1980.

What makes you think that the street actions caused the arms reduction treaties?

Any important topic has street actions, Greenpeace, PETA, you name it. If you don't have street actions it means that no body is interested in the problem.

Alternatively, it means that people are getting on with solving the problem. For example, there are no (few?) street actions to protest the fact that it's hard to communicate over long-distances. This is not because people don't care, it's because they realise that street actions won't change things, and instead they invent email, and VoIP, and Skype, and so on. Street actions are a reflection of powerlessness, of a lack of better ideas.

[-]turchin10y00

So do you think that any protest against nuclear war or war in Vietnam were completely useless, because nobody knows what was exact causation?
I do not claim that antinuclear protest was the only cause of nuclear disarmament but I think that it was one of several parallel causes and no we now, neither people at this time could find the proportion. But is some cases street protests are effective. Greenpeace did most of its job by street protest.

Also your example with creating Skype is not correct. Preventing human extinction is not equal to creating one concrete thing (or may be Friendly AI?). For example someone could not prevent war in Vietnam by creating any possible concrete invention. He had to influence government and wide masses of people.

If you are going to be killed you have right to protest against it. Also you said that street action is reflection of powerlessness. But lack of street actions is also reflect the fact that nobody is interested in the topic.

[-]Florian_Dietz10y100

While I think this is a good idea in principle, most of these slogans don't seem very effective because they suffer from the illusion of transparency. Consider what they must look like to someone viewing this from the outside:

"AI must be friendly" just sounds weird to someone who isn't used to the lingo of calling AI 'friendly'. I can't think of an alternative slogan for this, but there must be a better way to phrase that.

"Ebola must die!" sounds great. It references a concrete risk that people understand and calls for its destruction. I could get behind that.

But I'm afraid that all the other points just sound like something a doomsday cult would say. I know that there is solid evidence behind this, but the people you are trying to convince don't have that knowledge. If I was unaware of the issues and just saw a few of these banners without knowing the context, I would not be surprised to find "Repent! The end is nigh!" somewhere nearby.

I would recommend that you think of some more slogans like the Ebola one: Mention a concrete risk that is understandable to the public and does not sound far-fetched to the uninformed.

[-]Salemicus10y90

I found this post very funny. Sadly, I think it is meant to be serious.

I am sure this event will be just as successful as your street actions campaigning for immortality.

[-]KnaveOfAllTrades10y20

Whoever downvoted this comment, please explain your downvote.

turchin's proposed action makes me uneasy, but how would you justify this comment? Generally such comments are discouraged here, and you would've been downvoted into oblivion if you'd made such a response to a proposal that weren't so one-sidedly rejected by Less Wrong. What's the relevant difference that justifies your comment in this case, or do you think such comments are generally okay here, or do you think you over-reacted?

[-]Salemicus10y60

I think my comment was on-point, truthful, pithy, and not overly rude. Such comments should be encouraged.
I genuinely think the post is hilarious, because it shows so many cognitive biases in service of "rationalism."
The poster claims he wants to reduce X-risk. But his proposed solution is to stand in the street with placards saying "Stop Existential Risks!" And then magically a solution appears, because of "awareness." What would we say about, for example, a malaria charity that used such a tactic?
I seem to recall that policy debates shouldn't appear one-sided. Yet all his slogans are ridiculous. Consider, for example, "Prevent Global Catastrophe!" Do you think that people who don't take existential risks are in favour of global catastrophe? What does it even mean to say there is a 50% chance of a global catastrophe?
Perhaps the funniest part is that the poster has already organised street actions for immortality. Presumably, he must believe that those made great strides to solving the problem of immortality(!!!), which is why he's now using the same tactics to tackle existential risk more generally...
But in another way, his street actions for immortality were presumably successful, because they made the participants (at Burning Man, no less!) feel good about themselves, and superior to the rest of the common flock. So the second part of my comment was a double-edged sword.
I could go on. Ultimately, if you make a ridiculous post, you can't expect people not to laugh.

[+]KnaveOfAllTrades10y-80

[-]James_Miller10y50

Shouldn't rationalists be saying "Reduce existential risks!" or even "Coordinate to slightly reduce existential risks!"

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