Agree. Every person living today looks extraordinarily impactful when you consider that 1000 years from now there will probably either be a million+ times as many humans or we’ll all be extinct.
I think the key issue for people like Athrelon’s friend is that there is a kind of “impact hedonic treadmill” that operates something like the regular hedonic treadmill in that you get used to seeing yourself as a person who is likely to have X level of impact, and if that level goes down, there will be a painful adjustment period kind of like if a wealthy first worlder was robbed and dropped in the middle of an unfamiliar city. It’s much, much better than being dropped in Antarctica and left to die in the cold, but it takes mental discipline to keep that in perspective. (Some of today’s beggars arguably live better than kings of centuries ago; I met one who had a cell phone and a laptop.)
I’m dealing with something similar as a nasty bout of eyestrain has made it difficult for me to use my computer for the past month.. wrote this comment mostly using a screen reader :( (Would love to hear from anyone who’s suffered from this problem in the past via PM)
Every person living today looks extraordinarily impactful when you consider that 1000 years from now there will probably either be a million+ times as many humans or we’ll all be extinct.
This statement looks equally applicable to the year 1900, for example.
We have more reasons now (nuclear weapons, unfriendly AI, grey goo, the great filter) to think we will someday destroy ourselves than people in 1900 did.
I don’t believe that it is generally agreed upon where the great filter lies. We could already be past it. Finding multi-cellular life elsewhere in the solar system would support the hypothesis that the great filter lies ahead of us. But, we have not done that.
Why would the great filter (between current circumstances and astronomically-visible artificial events) being ahead of us imply there being no humans in the future?
Great point. Even if the great filter lies ahead of us, that in no way implies there being no humans in the future. However, it does increase the probability of an existential catastrophe in the near to midterm future.
True in the sense that part of the possibility space of the human future that does not include interstellar engineering includes worlds where such things are possible/likely but humans go extinct. I think though that the possibility space is much thicker with possibilities in which interstellar engineering is something that isn’t possible/practical but extinction is not necessarily in the cards.
Every person living today looks extraordinarily impactful when you consider that 1000 years from now there will probably either be a million+ times as many humans or we’ll all be extinct.
insert my obligatory objection to essentially religious singulatarian eschatological mythology here
“Superficially religious” seems fair, but I object to the “essentially religious” characterization. What makes religious claims essentially different from other sorts of claims is when their advocates say they exist in a “separate magesteria” where the normal rules of reason and empiricism don’t apply, fail to recognize that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, etc. (in other words, the essence of religion amounts to failures of rationality—if your idea of “religion” amounts to “woo, I don’t know, that sounds pretty fantastic” then I don’t see why things like supersonic air travel, cell phones, etc. wouldn’t count as “religious” phenomena, at least to people who lived long before they were invented).
By my reckoning, Sagan’s dragon in his garage is the opposite of transhumanism—it’s a claim that doesn’t look superficially all that much like most religious claims, but it’s an essentially religious one because of the rationality failures Sagan exhibits in his attempts to defend the existence of his dragon. You talk as though there is some well established body of thought explaining the rationality failures behind transhumanist claims, but I find it a bit suspicious that you’re not linking to anything and the best you seem to be able to do is draw what looks like a superficial analogy between transhumanism and religion… if you know of a better argument, please by all means share it.
(I think the best you could do would be something along the lines of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence, which I’ll accept… I should have used “likely” or “plausibly” in order to qualify my claim, and I do think the transhumanist community is a bit overly attached to specific scenarios, but they still seem to me like important possible scenarios to consider and plan for. The alternative looks a lot like sticking our collective heads in the sand and pretending that there’s no chance at all that trends will keep going in the direction they’ve been going.)
What makes religious claims essentially different from other sorts of claims is when their advocates say they exist in a “separate magesteria” where the normal rules of reason and empiricism don’t apply
Proving God’s existence on the basis of reason and empiricism was very popular only a few centuries ago. Were not these pieces of theology religious?
I don’t see why things like supersonic air travel, cell phones, etc. wouldn’t count as “religious” phenomena, at least to people who lived long before they were invented
Proving God’s existence on the basis of reason and empiricism was very popular only a few centuries ago. Were not these pieces of theology religious?
Dressing up bad arguments with the clothes of science and reason doesn’t make them any less bad. What matters is the quality of the arguments. And if the arguments for transhumanism are good, it hardly would seem to matter if the conclusions bear superficial similarity to some religious claims. Again, what matters is the quality of the arguments. I’d love to see critics of transhumanism engage with the actual arguments put forward for transhumanist positions, but so far what they’re doing looks more like pointing and laughing than engaging in a meaningful discussion. I’m not asking them to become transhumanists; I’m asking them to stop pointing and laughing. Pointing and laughing is a heuristic that helps you find whichever positions are currently trendy, but there are lots of positions that at one time weren’t especially trendy and are now much trendier (atheism being one).
They would certainly count as magic.
Exactly… “seems magic” is a bad heuristic for figuring out what’s true or possible.
Agree. Every person living today looks extraordinarily impactful when you consider that 1000 years from now there will probably either be a million+ times as many humans or we’ll all be extinct.
I think the key issue for people like Athrelon’s friend is that there is a kind of “impact hedonic treadmill” that operates something like the regular hedonic treadmill in that you get used to seeing yourself as a person who is likely to have X level of impact, and if that level goes down, there will be a painful adjustment period kind of like if a wealthy first worlder was robbed and dropped in the middle of an unfamiliar city. It’s much, much better than being dropped in Antarctica and left to die in the cold, but it takes mental discipline to keep that in perspective. (Some of today’s beggars arguably live better than kings of centuries ago; I met one who had a cell phone and a laptop.)
I’m dealing with something similar as a nasty bout of eyestrain has made it difficult for me to use my computer for the past month.. wrote this comment mostly using a screen reader :( (Would love to hear from anyone who’s suffered from this problem in the past via PM)
This statement looks equally applicable to the year 1900, for example.
We have more reasons now (nuclear weapons, unfriendly AI, grey goo, the great filter) to think we will someday destroy ourselves than people in 1900 did.
The question isn’t what we think, the question is whether in fact every person is “extraordinary impactful”.
As a baseline may I suggest the humans during Pleistocene?
I don’t believe that it is generally agreed upon where the great filter lies. We could already be past it. Finding multi-cellular life elsewhere in the solar system would support the hypothesis that the great filter lies ahead of us. But, we have not done that.
Why would the great filter (between current circumstances and astronomically-visible artificial events) being ahead of us imply there being no humans in the future?
Great point. Even if the great filter lies ahead of us, that in no way implies there being no humans in the future. However, it does increase the probability of an existential catastrophe in the near to midterm future.
True in the sense that part of the possibility space of the human future that does not include interstellar engineering includes worlds where such things are possible/likely but humans go extinct. I think though that the possibility space is much thicker with possibilities in which interstellar engineering is something that isn’t possible/practical but extinction is not necessarily in the cards.
True, but we have a lot more reason to fear it than people in 1900 did.
insert my obligatory objection to essentially religious singulatarian eschatological mythology here
insert my obligatory link to my book Singularity Rising.
“Superficially religious” seems fair, but I object to the “essentially religious” characterization. What makes religious claims essentially different from other sorts of claims is when their advocates say they exist in a “separate magesteria” where the normal rules of reason and empiricism don’t apply, fail to recognize that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, etc. (in other words, the essence of religion amounts to failures of rationality—if your idea of “religion” amounts to “woo, I don’t know, that sounds pretty fantastic” then I don’t see why things like supersonic air travel, cell phones, etc. wouldn’t count as “religious” phenomena, at least to people who lived long before they were invented).
By my reckoning, Sagan’s dragon in his garage is the opposite of transhumanism—it’s a claim that doesn’t look superficially all that much like most religious claims, but it’s an essentially religious one because of the rationality failures Sagan exhibits in his attempts to defend the existence of his dragon. You talk as though there is some well established body of thought explaining the rationality failures behind transhumanist claims, but I find it a bit suspicious that you’re not linking to anything and the best you seem to be able to do is draw what looks like a superficial analogy between transhumanism and religion… if you know of a better argument, please by all means share it.
(I think the best you could do would be something along the lines of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence, which I’ll accept… I should have used “likely” or “plausibly” in order to qualify my claim, and I do think the transhumanist community is a bit overly attached to specific scenarios, but they still seem to me like important possible scenarios to consider and plan for. The alternative looks a lot like sticking our collective heads in the sand and pretending that there’s no chance at all that trends will keep going in the direction they’ve been going.)
Proving God’s existence on the basis of reason and empiricism was very popular only a few centuries ago. Were not these pieces of theology religious?
They would certainly count as magic.
Dressing up bad arguments with the clothes of science and reason doesn’t make them any less bad. What matters is the quality of the arguments. And if the arguments for transhumanism are good, it hardly would seem to matter if the conclusions bear superficial similarity to some religious claims. Again, what matters is the quality of the arguments. I’d love to see critics of transhumanism engage with the actual arguments put forward for transhumanist positions, but so far what they’re doing looks more like pointing and laughing than engaging in a meaningful discussion. I’m not asking them to become transhumanists; I’m asking them to stop pointing and laughing. Pointing and laughing is a heuristic that helps you find whichever positions are currently trendy, but there are lots of positions that at one time weren’t especially trendy and are now much trendier (atheism being one).
Exactly… “seems magic” is a bad heuristic for figuring out what’s true or possible.