Idea: robots can be visibly unfriendly without being anywhere near a FOOM. This will help promote awareness.
I think this is different from your examples.
A mouse living to the ripe old age of 5? Well, everyone has precedent for animals living that long, and we also have precedent for medicine doing all sorts of amazing things for the health of mice that seem never to translate into treatments for people.
Economic meltdowns? Economics is so political that you expect the populace to update on evidence? You might as well expect them to update on evidence in respect to religion.
Meanwhile, we are so very primed to suspect the worst of computers.
Funny that I just hit this with my comment from yesterday:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/hoz/do_earths_with_slower_economic_growth_have_a/95hm
Idea: robots can be visibly unfriendly without being anywhere near a FOOM. This will help promote awareness.
I think this is different from your examples.
A mouse living to the ripe old age of 5? Well, everyone has precedent for animals living that long, and we also have precedent for medicine doing all sorts of amazing things for the health of mice that seem never to translate into treatments for people.
Economic meltdowns? Economics is so political that you expect the populace to update on evidence? You might as well expect them to update on evidence in respect to religion.
Meanwhile, we are so very primed to suspect the worst of computers.