[ExI] AI and Eliezer

[efc at swisscows.email]

On Wed, 20 Mar 2024, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 1:20 PM efc--- via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: On Wed, 20 Mar 2024, Dylan
> Distasio via extropy-chat wrote:
>       > You strike to the quick of it!  He's willing to bomb
>       > non-compliant data centers out of existence.   After his Time
>       interview, I can't
>       > take him seriously any longer.    
>       >
>       > Climate change is another great example, and I would add a
>       > third playing out in real time now in the US (and on this
>       list), some have
>       > an irrational fear that Trump is an infinite threat and are
>       > pretty much willing to do ANYTHING to prevent his
>       re-election.
>
>       That makes me think that this is a broader problem that cuts
>       through many different issues.
>
>       How come we became so extreme in our opinions?
>
>       Surely "social media" is too simple an explanation. I would
>       think that perhaps we have several factors coming together in a
>       polarizing storm here.
> 
> That is a good point.  To take Trump as an example: while he is a
> threat, his threat is not infinite.  4 years of him in office has
> shown that his reelection would be survivable for almost all Americans
> - even if measures are in place to make his next term worse, unless
> anyone seriously believes he could stay in office past the end of his
> second term (or indefinitely).

There certainly seems to be a lot of hate between extreme democrats and
extreme republicans.

> Perhaps part of the issue is that so many people believe they have so
> little to lose, relative to the scale of the threat.  For instance,
> some eco-activist might think that reducing the chance of global
> meltdown by 1% far exceeds the potential value of anything else they
> could possibly hope to achieve with their lives.

Oh yes, I definitely believe that plays a part. If you are convince that
due to climate change everyone will die tomorrow, you certainly have
nothing to lose by trying everything within your power to stop it from
happening. But that's the problem with assigning infinite evil or
infinite good to an outcome, everything else gets thrown out the window.

> Disasterbation plays a part too: convincing oneself that there is this
> one absolutely justified course of action that can never be questioned
> as the best thing one could have done, relieves the burden of having
> to think and assess one's choices, which a number of people are averse
> to.  It is the same itch that religion scratches, in a time when many
> are finding that religion does not work well enough (see the
> increasing publicity of moral failings of large, organized religions,
> as well as the increasing number of things that lay people see a need
> to understand but that the most often encountered religions do not
> adequately explain).  This creates an incentive to think along lines
> that justify that sort of conclusion, and to ignore evidence to the
> contrary.

I think that's one issue. It seems we have a built in need for belonging
and losing ourselves in the collective. It's like we have a hole inside
ourselves waiting to be filled with religion, ideology, sub-cultures
etc. Since you identify yourself on a deep level with this religion/ism,
the one who is the boss of it gains enormous power over you.

It's as if somehow the normal condition of the brain has been warped
somehow, making people more prone to catastrophizing and to clinging to
a group.

I'm still trying to figure out what contributed, and I can see some
factors. Schools, where a lot of our basic mental habits are formed and
our program mof society is loaded into us, social media might have a
contributing factor, but there are many people who engage in a healthy
way with social media as well. Another possibility is that things are in
fact not as bad as they seem, and that we never get to see or hear the
silent majority who are pretty ok. We only see, naturally, the
extremists on TV since a "pretty ok" guy sells no newspapers and
generates no clicks.

Yet another thought that strikes me, is if we are in a downward spiral,
or if the organism will detect and adapt, and that after a few years or
what we are currently living in, things will revert to some mean?