Sometimes I wonder if the anthropic principle can also apply to such historical cases.
In a world where Petrov reports a nuclear attack to his superiors, this starts a causal chain that has a very high probability of ending in WWIII and nuclear winter. In this world, I would not have been born one year later. The human population in 2025 would probably be only a fraction of what it is in our world.
So in a certain sense, we could consider abstractly that in the set of possible worlds, all other things being equal, there is statistically more chance for a posterior observer to exist in a world where Petrov acted as a hero than in a world where he obeyed orders. Same for the Cuban crisis and other critical moments.
It’s as if history is always biased, relying on a posteriori probabilities, while the future appears unbiased because it relies on a priori probabilities. In the set of possible worlds, people born in 2100 would have a high chance of living in a world where alignment has been solved, simply because they exist to observe it. Like it was easy or likely ! This asymetry, this bias when we look at history, could be a drive toward excessive optimism.
I didn’t know about Petrov. Wise man.
Sometimes I wonder if the anthropic principle can also apply to such historical cases.
In a world where Petrov reports a nuclear attack to his superiors, this starts a causal chain that has a very high probability of ending in WWIII and nuclear winter. In this world, I would not have been born one year later. The human population in 2025 would probably be only a fraction of what it is in our world.
So in a certain sense, we could consider abstractly that in the set of possible worlds, all other things being equal, there is statistically more chance for a posterior observer to exist in a world where Petrov acted as a hero than in a world where he obeyed orders. Same for the Cuban crisis and other critical moments.
It’s as if history is always biased, relying on a posteriori probabilities, while the future appears unbiased because it relies on a priori probabilities. In the set of possible worlds, people born in 2100 would have a high chance of living in a world where alignment has been solved, simply because they exist to observe it. Like it was easy or likely ! This asymetry, this bias when we look at history, could be a drive toward excessive optimism.