Explaining catastrophic risks to the audience of Fox News is perhaps equally difficult to explaining the risk of artificial intelligence to anyone.
This seems like an unnecessary Blue/Green dig, and frankly isn’t even obviously true even if one buys into certain stereotypes. The standard accusations of Fox viewers emphasizes their level of worry and paranoia. In that context, existential risk would be something they’d be more likely to listen to for irrational reasons. But to be blunt, I suspect that explaining catastrophic risk will be about as difficult for CNN or MSNBC viewers also.
Okay, that’s reasonable. But can we talk about the content post itself? I don’t think that this really is the most important part of the post and that the top comment should be about it.
Probably because Fox is the only major news outlet with a significant libertarian presence, Fox has been giving more coverage than other major news outlets on these kinds of issues for a while. OReilly had the interview. I believe Beck has talked about most everything AI—existential risk, uploading, transhumanism. Even Stossel has touched on these topics.
Probably because Fox is the only major news outlet with a significant libertarian presence, Fox has been giving more coverage than other major news outlets on these kinds of issues for a while.
I don’t quite see why one would expect that to be associated with libertarianism, and in so far as some aspects of some of these ideas connect to that (transhumanism definitely has a “let me do what I want” aspect), other things that are associated with Fox, such as social conservativism would militate against that. And given standard ideological biases, my naive guess would be that libertarians would be less accepting of notions of existential risk rather than more.
This seems like an unnecessary Blue/Green dig, and frankly isn’t even obviously true even if one buys into certain stereotypes. The standard accusations of Fox viewers emphasizes their level of worry and paranoia. In that context, existential risk would be something they’d be more likely to listen to for irrational reasons. But to be blunt, I suspect that explaining catastrophic risk will be about as difficult for CNN or MSNBC viewers also.
I think it’s generally difficult to explain anything of significance on TV. The medium just doesn’t lend itself to rational analysis.
Also see Chomsky on concision.
Good pickup! If I ever rewrite the post, I’ll fix this.
Okay, that’s reasonable. But can we talk about the content post itself? I don’t think that this really is the most important part of the post and that the top comment should be about it.
Try sort by controversial rather than sort by top. Generally makes for a better discussion.
Probably because Fox is the only major news outlet with a significant libertarian presence, Fox has been giving more coverage than other major news outlets on these kinds of issues for a while. OReilly had the interview. I believe Beck has talked about most everything AI—existential risk, uploading, transhumanism. Even Stossel has touched on these topics.
I don’t quite see why one would expect that to be associated with libertarianism, and in so far as some aspects of some of these ideas connect to that (transhumanism definitely has a “let me do what I want” aspect), other things that are associated with Fox, such as social conservativism would militate against that. And given standard ideological biases, my naive guess would be that libertarians would be less accepting of notions of existential risk rather than more.