[ExI] Natasha got quoted in the daily mall

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Sat Jun 13 13:10:35 UTC 2015


On 13 June 2015 at 12:41, Anders Sandberg  wrote:
> You know me: I worry that some people think the Daily Mail is an unbiased
> news source.
>

There are some fun criticisms of the DM around.  :)

<http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/oct/07/addictive-carcinogenic-daily-mail-spoof>
RationalWiki <http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Daily_Mail>


> Still, there is an interesting issue in the second possibility. When would
> we want breakthroughs in transhumanist technologies not to be widely
> mentioned? The standard case is when there will be a predictable moral
> outrage from some parties that may cause reaction. Sometimes flying under
> the radar is a good thing, as a technology becomes more refined and accepted
> by default. We have similar issues with talk about risks such as AI risk:
> some public recognition that there is a problem is OK, but most of the
> importance lies in having the AI community recognize this properly and be
> motivated to figure out proper solutions - we in the AI risk community are
> really balancing on a knife edge between being too quiet or accidentally
> risking triggering stupid overreactions (both from publics that may think AI
> must be stopped, and from AI people who think AI safety talk is stupid and
> must be stopped).
>
> However, adding credibility to a technology in small increments is rarely a
> bad thing.
>


Certainly all publicity is not good publicity.

If something appears in pseudoscience magazines or conspiracy theory
blogs, then it will get associated with such and only be supported by
'fringe' groups. Psi is a good example. Few mainstream scientists
would risk their career by working on psi.

The DM includes 'science' articles to give their paper a veneer of
respectability. Many of their 'science' articles are of dubious
quality. One example is their running campaign to show that everything
either causes or cures cancer (sometimes both).  :)

Once science becomes politicised then it becomes a right / left
battleground with biased arguments all around. See climate change,
etc.

BillK



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