I think it makes sense to take an “epistemic prepper” perspective. What precautions could one take in advance to make sure that, if the discourse became dominated by militant flat earth fanatics, round earthers could still reason together, coordinate, and trust each other? What kinds of institutions would have made it easier for a core of sanity to survive through, say, 30s Germany or 60s China? For example, would it make sense to have an agreed-upon epistemic “fire alarm”?
What kinds of institutions would have made it easier for a core of sanity to survive through, say, 30s Germany or 60s China?
I don’t see how any such institutions could themselves survive, since they’ll be among the highest priority targets for those regimes. It seems that sanity survived in the past only because of (1) privacy / lack of sufficiently advanced surveillance technology and (2) decentralization / lack of global coordination ability. But these are the exact things we need to develop to prevent future tech-driven x-risks. So far I don’t see a way out of this catch-22 (except low probability scenarios like it turns out to be really easy to build an Aligned Sovereign Singleton aka Friendly AI).
In that case, it’s not really prepping anymore, but more like catch-up, since ideological fanaticism is already widespread? But along these lines, someone (who didn’t want attribution) PM’ed me the idea of “social media shaming insurance” or “cancellation insurance”, and I just came across Free Speech Union, which was apparently created just a few days ago and is offering something like this kind of insurance. Interview with founder of Free Speech Union
I think it makes sense to take an “epistemic prepper” perspective. What precautions could one take in advance to make sure that, if the discourse became dominated by militant flat earth fanatics, round earthers could still reason together, coordinate, and trust each other? What kinds of institutions would have made it easier for a core of sanity to survive through, say, 30s Germany or 60s China? For example, would it make sense to have an agreed-upon epistemic “fire alarm”?
I don’t see how any such institutions could themselves survive, since they’ll be among the highest priority targets for those regimes. It seems that sanity survived in the past only because of (1) privacy / lack of sufficiently advanced surveillance technology and (2) decentralization / lack of global coordination ability. But these are the exact things we need to develop to prevent future tech-driven x-risks. So far I don’t see a way out of this catch-22 (except low probability scenarios like it turns out to be really easy to build an Aligned Sovereign Singleton aka Friendly AI).
Probably it makes more sense to prepare for scenarios where ideological fanaticism is widespread but isn’t wielding government power.
In that case, it’s not really prepping anymore, but more like catch-up, since ideological fanaticism is already widespread? But along these lines, someone (who didn’t want attribution) PM’ed me the idea of “social media shaming insurance” or “cancellation insurance”, and I just came across Free Speech Union, which was apparently created just a few days ago and is offering something like this kind of insurance. Interview with founder of Free Speech Union