VAuroch comments on Existential Risk and Existential Hope: Definitions - LessWrong

7 Post author: owencb 10 January 2015 07:09PM

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Comment author: VAuroch 17 January 2015 10:30:32AM 1 point [-]

When someone is ignorant of the actual chance of a catastrophic event happening, even if they consider it possible, they will have fairly high EV. When they update significantly toward the chance of that event happening, their EV will drop very significantly. This change itself meets the definition of 'existential catastrophe'.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 17 January 2015 06:52:50PM 1 point [-]

Sounds like evidential decision theory again. According to that argument, you should maintain high EV by avoiding looking into existential risks.

Comment author: VAuroch 18 January 2015 03:53:47AM 0 points [-]

Yes, that's my issue with the paper; it doesn't distinguish that from actual catastrophes.

Comment author: hairyfigment 17 January 2015 05:20:33PM *  0 points [-]

I don't know what you think you're saying - the definition no longer says that if you consider it to refer to E(V) as calculated by the agent at the first time (conditional on the "catastrophe").

ETA: "An existential catastrophe is an event which causes the loss of most expected value."