This can score huge with lazy or unintellectual people if it’s allowed to succeed.
What is the likelihood that lazy or unintellectual people would have ever done anything to reduce existential risk regardless of any particular advocate for/against?
They might give money to the people will actually use do the reduction in existential risk. I’d also note that even more people who are generally intellectuals or at least think of themselves as intellectuals, this sort of argument can if phrased in the right way still impact them; scifi is still a very low status association for many of those people.
I think Eneasz is right, but I agree with you that we should care about the support of ordinary people and those who choose to specialize elsewhere.
I was thinking also of the motivational effect of average people’s (dis)approval on the gifted. Sure, many intellectual milestones were first reached by those who either needed less to be accepted, or drew their in-group/out-group boundary more tightly around themselves, but social pressure matters.
What is the likelihood that lazy or unintellectual people would have ever done anything to reduce existential risk regardless of any particular advocate for/against?
They might give money to the people will actually use do the reduction in existential risk. I’d also note that even more people who are generally intellectuals or at least think of themselves as intellectuals, this sort of argument can if phrased in the right way still impact them; scifi is still a very low status association for many of those people.
I think Eneasz is right, but I agree with you that we should care about the support of ordinary people and those who choose to specialize elsewhere.
I was thinking also of the motivational effect of average people’s (dis)approval on the gifted. Sure, many intellectual milestones were first reached by those who either needed less to be accepted, or drew their in-group/out-group boundary more tightly around themselves, but social pressure matters.