My sense is that there is a underlying psychological dynamic going on that people tend to judge their current state relative to some “absolute victory” state: * Two countries who are in total war with each other are both in a precarious state. Each of them judges the current state relative to “I have completely won and subjugated the opponent”. Relative to this total victory state they feel very precarious. * Islam is doing quite well globally. Islam “has” 1/4th the global population, it is increasing in members the fastest out of the major religions. Yet I suspect the reason for at least some Muslims that this feels very dis-satisfactory is because according to them Islam “should” have ~100% followers worldwide. (of course there are many other factors going on here). Relative to this total victory state, the current situation of merely 1/4th of the global population seems extremely weak. * People in the AI x-risk community want ~everyone or ~every-serious-person to take AI x-risk seriously, rather than mock or ignore it. People who think it’s all a big dangerous distraction want ~no-one to take it seriously and it to never get any serious news coverage. Relative to these diametrically opposed total victory conditions, both sides feel the other side has “too much” influence, and their own side seems too weak.
What do you think of this idea, that the sense of being an underdog is (often) downstream of a prior feeling of your side being weak/threatened relative to a total-victory condition? And that this causes a distorted picture in which your side is actually objectively weak relative to the other side.
Interesting, I wonder what you think of this:
My sense is that there is a underlying psychological dynamic going on that people tend to judge their current state relative to some “absolute victory” state:
* Two countries who are in total war with each other are both in a precarious state. Each of them judges the current state relative to “I have completely won and subjugated the opponent”. Relative to this total victory state they feel very precarious.
* Islam is doing quite well globally. Islam “has” 1/4th the global population, it is increasing in members the fastest out of the major religions. Yet I suspect the reason for at least some Muslims that this feels very dis-satisfactory is because according to them Islam “should” have ~100% followers worldwide. (of course there are many other factors going on here). Relative to this total victory state, the current situation of merely 1/4th of the global population seems extremely weak.
* People in the AI x-risk community want ~everyone or ~every-serious-person to take AI x-risk seriously, rather than mock or ignore it. People who think it’s all a big dangerous distraction want ~no-one to take it seriously and it to never get any serious news coverage. Relative to these diametrically opposed total victory conditions, both sides feel the other side has “too much” influence, and their own side seems too weak.
What do you think of this idea, that the sense of being an underdog is (often) downstream of a prior feeling of your side being weak/threatened relative to a total-victory condition? And that this causes a distorted picture in which your side is actually objectively weak relative to the other side.