In MIRI announces new "Death With Dignity" strategy, Eliezer makes a number of claims. As I understood them, they are: 1. Humanity is very likely doomed, because AI alignment is extremely hard, and no one has a strategy that could plausibly work (or is on track to find one) 2. The right thing to do is maximize the log odds of humanity’s survival 3. The way to do this to adopt a mindset Eliezer calls “dying with dignity” Assuming 1) and 2) are true, I’m not convinced the right mindset to adopt is “dying with dignity”. I don’t like it as a framing of the problem. Personally, it sounds demotivating and depressing, and not the thing that will help me maximize the log odds of success. I recognize that not everyone has the same mental setup as me, and some people might find the dying with dignity framing helpful. If it works for you, great, but I think there is a better problem framing that will work for a wider variety of mental setups, and I call it playing to your outs. This problem framing arose out of a discussion about the dying with dignity post with Eli Rose and Seraphina Nix. Eli pointed out that in Magic the Gathering, there is a useful strategy to adopt when you’re likely to lose, called playing to your outs. Basically, there are times when you’re losing and it’s tempting to try to minimize your losses and make what gains you can. But if you’re sufficiently behind, this will almost always fail. Instead you need to think ahead to what cards you can draw, or what cards your opponent might fail to draw, that will afford you a chance to win. Then plan for one of those scenarios happening, even if it’s quite unlikely. If 1) is true, then we are losing badly in our game of AI existential risk. It’s hard to stay motivated when things are dire, and I claim our stance should be like that of a good Magic player. Playing carefully, choosing strategies that have a shot at winning, keeping our eye on the prize. Being ready to win if the opportunity presents itself.