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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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In the ragged parlance of the youth: "human government has been tested and found wanting time and again" is not the own you think it is.

To be less mod-aggravating: just because you feel you have little control over the direction of human society, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be worried about something even more distant and ineffable making your existence look like a burden on the universe. The AI has a more plausible shot at Total World Domination than the slapdash great power competition that we've been under for a few centuries.

In the ragged parlance of the youth: "human government has been tested and found wanting time and again" is not the own you think it is.

I don't think it's the "own". I think if you say "it will kill us all because X would happen" and I say "X is already happening and we are not dead yet" then it's pretty good argument that the direct casual link between X and killing us all is not established.

doesn't mean you shouldn't be worried about something even more distant and ineffable making your existence look like a burden on the universe

I am worried about a lot of things. Death, disease, government turning fascist, that kind of thing. If AI ever reaches the level of being worry-worthy, sure, I'd worry about that part too. I am just not seeing the "my child won't survive to adulthood" part.

The AI has a more plausible shot at Total World Domination than the slapdash great power competition that we've been under for a few centuries.

That needs to be established. High IQ nerds think being able to do some tasks fast means total power, but somehow I don't see too many high IQ nerds in power. Even among people having Tons of Money not everyone at all is high IQ nerds, and the percentage of billionaires among high IQ nerds is not as large as they'd likely wish. So even imagining they'd build an electronic super-high-IQ nerd - which so far isn't proven at all, though seems more plausible than before - I am not sure it is established this means Total World Domination.