site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   38438 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What's the hole in the supervirus scenario? Smallpox was able to kill 90% of the pre-Columbian population of the Americas, and that was completely natural. There is almost certainly some DNA/RNA sequence or set of sequences which codes for organisms that would be sufficient to kill everyone on earth.

It's not the idea of a supervirus I have a problem with so much as the idea that once AI reaches human level it will be able to conceive, manufacture, and efficiently distribute such a supervirus in short order.

How about it locates smart, depressed biologists who can be convinced to try to end the world, and then teams up these biologists and gives them lots of funds.

Lab leaks happen already by accident. Why would you believe it's so hard to engineer a lab leak directly given (1)superintelligence and (2) the piles of money superintelligence can easily earn via hacking/crypto/stock trading/intellectual labor?

Its a virus. Once you have ten you are a day or two away from ten trillion.

Infect 20 people and send them on impromptu business trips to every major populated landmass. A human-level intelligence could do this once they have the virus. Mopping up the stragglers on small isolated islands will be cake once you're in control of the world's military equipment.

Infect 20 people and send them on impromptu business trips to every major populated landmass.

How does the AI infect these twenty people and how does it send them on these trips?

It asks them to inject themselves and to go on said trips, and they say "okay!"

If it's good at computational biochemistry, it will have control or significant influence over at least one biotech lab (don't even try to contest this. That's like 90% of the bull case for AGI). At that point, it could lie about the safety profile about the DNA sequences being transcribed, it could come up with a pretense for the company to get 20 people in a room, brief them, and then send them on their way to the airport, it could brainwash the incels working in the lab via AI waifus, and it could contrive some reason for the brainwashed lab incel to be in the briefing room (with a vial of virus of course).

You really should be able to intuitively grasp the idea that a superintelligence integrated into a biotech lab being able to engineer the escape of a virus is a robust outcome.

There are a lot of cruxes in this scenario. Do the humans have no ability to vet these DNA sequences for themselves? Do they bear no suspicious similarities to any currently existing viruses? How are the AI waifus brainwashing these labworkers into opening a vial of deadly virus? Is everyone in the lab taking orders directly from the AI?

Do the humans have no ability to vet these DNA sequences for themselves?

(A) No, basically no-one can know what a DNA sequence will actually do just from reading the letters, and (B) there are several biopharma services operating already which just take your synthesis order off a Google form, and the robots bake it up for you automatically. No human being ever even sees the raw requested sequence.

No. Nobody checks. Easily, apparently. No, they're just doing their jobs.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats