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hairyfigment comments on Roadmap: Plan of Action to Prevent Human Extinction Risks - Less Wrong Discussion

13 Post author: turchin 01 June 2015 09:58AM

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Comment author: Satoshi_Nakamoto 13 June 2015 05:18:02AM *  1 point [-]

In plans: 1. Is not "voluntary or forced devolution" the same as "ludism" and "relinquishment of dangerous science" which is already in the plan?

I was thinking more along the lines of restricting the chance for divergence in the human species. I guess I am not really sure what is it that you are trying to preserve. What do you take to be humanness? Technological advances may allow us to alter ourselves so substantially that we become post-human or no longer human. This could be for example from cybernetics or genetic engineering. "ludism" and "relinquishment of dangerous science" is a way to restrict what technologies we use, but note that we are still capable of using and creating these technologies. Devolution, perhaps there is a better word for it, would be something like the dumbing down of all or most humans so that they are no longer capable of using or creating the technologies that could make them less purely human.

I think that "some movement or event that will cause a paradigmatic change so that humanity becomes more existentially-risk aware" is basically the same idea as "smaller catastrophe could help unite humanity (pandemic, small asteroid, local nuclear war)", but your wording is excellent.

Yes you are right. I guess I was more implying man-made catastrophes which are created in order to cause a paradigmatic change rather than natural ones.

I still don't know how we could fix all the world system problems which are listed in your link without having control of most of the world which returns us to plan A1.

I'm not sure either. I would think you could do it by changing the way that politics works so that the policies implemented actually have empirical backing based on what we know about systems. Perhaps, this is just AI and improved computational modelling. This idea of needing control of the world seems extremely dangerous to me. Although, I suppose a top-down approach could solve the problems. I think that you should also think about what a good bottom-up approach would be. How do we make local communities and societies more resilient, economical and capable of facing potential X-risks.

In survive the catastrophe I would add two extra boxes:

  • Limit the impact of catastrophe by implementing measures to slow the growth and areas impacted by a catastrophe. For example, with pandemics you could: improve the capacity for rapid production of vaccines in response to emerging threats or create or grow stockpiles of important medical countermeasure

  • Increase time available for preparation by improving monitoring and early detection technologies. For example, with pandemics you could: supporting general research on the magnitude of biosecurity risks and opportunities to reduce them and improving and connect disease surveillance systems so that novel threats can be detected and responded to more quickly

I could send money to a charity of your choice.

Send it to one of the charities here.

Comment author: hairyfigment 13 June 2015 08:27:33PM 0 points [-]

What do you take to be humanness?

Technically, I wouldn't say we'd lost it if the price of sperm donation rose (from its current negative level) until it stopped being an efficient means of reproduction. But I think you underestimate the threat of regular evolution making a lot of similar changes, if you somehow froze some environment for a long time.

Not only does going back to our main ancestral environment seem unworkable - at least without a superhuman AI to manage it! - we should also consider the possibility that our moral urges are a mixed bag derived from many environments, not optimized for any.