Just this Monday evening, a professor at the local medical school emailed someone I know, “I’m sorry you’re so worried about the coronavirus. It seems much less worrying than the flu to me.” (He specializes in rehabilitation medicine, but still!) Pretending to be wise seems right to me, or another way to look at it is through the lens of signaling and counter-signaling:
The truly ignorant don’t panic because they don’t even know about the virus.
People who learn about the virus raise the alarm in part to signal their intelligence and knowledge.
“Experts” counter-signal to separate themselves from the masses by saying “no need to panic”.
People like us counter-counter-signal the “experts” to show we’re even smarter / more rational / more aware of social dynamics.
Here’s another example, which has actually happened 3 times to me already:
The truly ignorant don’t wear masks.
Many people wear masks or encourage others to wear masks in part to signal their knowledge and conscientiousness.
“Experts” counter-signal with “masks don’t do much”, “we should be evidence-based” and “WHO says ‘If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection.’”
I respond by citing actual evidence in the form of a meta-analysis: medical procedure masks combined with hand hygiene achieved RR of .73 while hand hygiene alone had a (not statistically significant) RR of .86.
that I have become more pessimistic about humanity correctly responding to global catastrophic risks in the future
Maybe correctly understanding the underlying social dynamics can help us figure out how to solve or ameliorate the problem, for example by deliberately pushing more people toward the higher part of the counter-signaling ladder (but hopefully not so much that another group forms to counter-signal us).
Now that the stock market has plummeted, from what my perspective appeared entirely predictable given my inside view information, I am also starting to doubt the efficiency of the stock market in response to historically unprecedented events.
I used to be a big believer in stock market efficiency, but I guess Bitcoin taught me that sometimes there just are $20 bills lying on the street. So I actually made a sizable bet against the market two weeks ago.
“Experts” counter-signal to separate themselves from the masses by saying “no need to panic”.
I think the main reason is that the social dynamic is probably favorable to them in the longrun. I worry that there is a higher social risk to being alarmist than being calm. Let me try to illustrate one scenario:
My current estimate is that there is only 15 − 20% probability of a global disaster (>50 million deaths within 1 year) mostly because the case fatality rate could be much lower than the currently reported rate, and previous illnesses like the swine flu became looking much less serious after more data came out. [ETA: I did a lot more research. I think it’s now like 5% risk of this.]
Let’s say that the case fatality rate turns out to be 0.3% or something, and the illness does start looking like an abnormally bad flu, and people stop caring within months. “Experts” face no sort of criticism since they remained calm and were vindicated. People like us sigh in relief, and are perhaps reminded by the “experts” that there was nothing to worry about.
But let’s say that the case fatality rate actually turns out to be 3%, and 50% of the global population is infected. Then it’s a huge deal, global recession looks inevitable. “Experts” say that the disease is worse than anyone could have possibly seen coming, and most people believe them. People like us aren’t really vindicated, because everyone knows that the alarmists who predict doom every year will get it right occasionally.
Like with cryonics, the relatively low but still significant chance of a huge outcome makes people systematically refuse to calculate expected value. It’s not a good feature of human psychology.
When I observe that there’s no fire alarm for AGI, I’m not saying that there’s no possible equivalent of smoke appearing from under a door.
What I’m saying rather is that the smoke under the door is always going to be arguable; it is not going to be a clear and undeniable and absolute sign of fire; and so there is never going to be a fire alarm producing common knowledge that action is now due and socially acceptable.
I think what we’re seeing now is the smoke coming out from under the door and people don’t want to be the first one to cause a scene.
Just this Monday evening, a professor at the local medical school emailed someone I know, “I’m sorry you’re so worried about the coronavirus. It seems much less worrying than the flu to me.” (He specializes in rehabilitation medicine, but still!) Pretending to be wise seems right to me, or another way to look at it is through the lens of signaling and counter-signaling:
The truly ignorant don’t panic because they don’t even know about the virus.
People who learn about the virus raise the alarm in part to signal their intelligence and knowledge.
“Experts” counter-signal to separate themselves from the masses by saying “no need to panic”.
People like us counter-counter-signal the “experts” to show we’re even smarter / more rational / more aware of social dynamics.
Here’s another example, which has actually happened 3 times to me already:
The truly ignorant don’t wear masks.
Many people wear masks or encourage others to wear masks in part to signal their knowledge and conscientiousness.
“Experts” counter-signal with “masks don’t do much”, “we should be evidence-based” and “WHO says ‘If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection.’”
I respond by citing actual evidence in the form of a meta-analysis: medical procedure masks combined with hand hygiene achieved RR of .73 while hand hygiene alone had a (not statistically significant) RR of .86.
Maybe correctly understanding the underlying social dynamics can help us figure out how to solve or ameliorate the problem, for example by deliberately pushing more people toward the higher part of the counter-signaling ladder (but hopefully not so much that another group forms to counter-signal us).
I used to be a big believer in stock market efficiency, but I guess Bitcoin taught me that sometimes there just are $20 bills lying on the street. So I actually made a sizable bet against the market two weeks ago.
I think the main reason is that the social dynamic is probably favorable to them in the longrun. I worry that there is a higher social risk to being alarmist than being calm. Let me try to illustrate one scenario:
My current estimate is that there is only 15 − 20% probability of a global disaster (>50 million deaths within 1 year) mostly because the case fatality rate could be much lower than the currently reported rate, and previous illnesses like the swine flu became looking much less serious after more data came out. [ETA: I did a lot more research. I think it’s now like 5% risk of this.]
Let’s say that the case fatality rate turns out to be 0.3% or something, and the illness does start looking like an abnormally bad flu, and people stop caring within months. “Experts” face no sort of criticism since they remained calm and were vindicated. People like us sigh in relief, and are perhaps reminded by the “experts” that there was nothing to worry about.
But let’s say that the case fatality rate actually turns out to be 3%, and 50% of the global population is infected. Then it’s a huge deal, global recession looks inevitable. “Experts” say that the disease is worse than anyone could have possibly seen coming, and most people believe them. People like us aren’t really vindicated, because everyone knows that the alarmists who predict doom every year will get it right occasionally.
Like with cryonics, the relatively low but still significant chance of a huge outcome makes people systematically refuse to calculate expected value. It’s not a good feature of human psychology.
I’m reminded of the fire alarm essay
I think what we’re seeing now is the smoke coming out from under the door and people don’t want to be the first one to cause a scene.
I’ve moved in the opposite direction. Please share your research?