Please tell me if I’m understanding this correctly. The main arguments are:
There are currently a lot of humans because we can do more things with more humans.
With advancing technology (specifically AI) we won’t need more humans to do more things.
From these two arguments the assumption is that AI will have an incentive to keep human population numbers low or at zero. If my understanding to this point is correct, what do you believe humans now should do knowing these assumptions?
I don’t agree that the ChatGPT list is less actionable, notice that all 6 scenarios listed are designed so that humans wouldn’t be aware of what was happening while slowly ceding control.
For my own students (I’m getting certified to teach high school business courses) I recommend Sophia learning (https://www.sophia.org/) to get a head start on gen ed college courses.
And it isn’t as if there couldn’t still be a remembrance ceremony with the leftover ashes.
I prefer to have my body buried in accordance with ethnic and cultural norms. Is there an option where they can take out my brain and preserve it and then allow my body to be buried?
I can imagine that building as a solution to low fertility could pick up steam in the coming years in terms of rhetoric but all the same barriers will likely still be in place (NIMBYism, lobbying by landlords, status quo bias etc.)
Money.
Insecurity about money.
Not being able to afford kids or the house to raise them in.
My gut reaction is that these are more perceptions than real obstacles. There’s a strong perception that there’s a certain dollar amount or level of wealth before one should have children. Somehow changing the perception first would probably help fertility more than simply paying per child.
“Home is where the heart is.”
I thought this meant something like home is where longing is (your metaphorical heart), the place that you yearn for the most. Now I think it may simply mean that home is wherever your physical beating heart is. The message behind it being that you can adapt to feel at home most anywhere.
“Breathtaking.”
I thought this was just an expression to explain natural beauty but I actually felt the breath leave me when I was young from suddenly seeing a sweeping vista of mountains and forest while riding on a bus when I was a teen.
Children of Men (2006) comes to mind: a movie about a small group of people in a dying world who have the means to benefit humanity and provide hope for the future but can’t agree on next steps. (The story is more nuanced but these bits seem relevant to rationality).
Maybe there’s a way to hedge against P(doom) by investing in human prosperity and proliferation while discouraging large leaps in tech. Maybe your money should go towards encouraging or financing low tech high fertility communities?
This applies to me, my work ethic went down after 2020 partly because of timing. I turned 30 in 2020 and before then mostly just did what was expected of me without putting too much thought into what I wanted. I’m still hardworking but much more choosy about what I’ll put time into and I try not to let social pressure affect my decisions.
My primary motivation for delving into WBE stems from a personal desire to upload my own mind.
This scares the hell out of me, even a very low chance of mind theft and eternal torture are just too risky in my opinion.
A repairer wants your stuff to break down,
A doctor wants you to get ill,
A lawyer wants you to get in conflicts,
A farmer wants you to be hungry,
A teacher wants you to be knowledge-less,
But there is only a thief who wants you to be rich.
I’m not sure how to interpret this. Repairers, doctors, lawyers and farmers are market inventions based on demand so technically they all want you to be rich. Teachers (at least in state schools) are more like a type of clergy with a sacred duty to their ‘parish’. So a more appropriate description could be: A teacher wants more teachers.
I would take this movement seriously and endorse it if there was a detailed plan for the future of the movement when the human race is still around in 2051 and I’m homeless and buried in debt.
we find that almost all the branches which provide definitions involving anything specific are of a sexual/procreative nature, with a few relating to status thrown in.
Procreation and status are arguably what humans spend most of our time and energy on. And we often mask our language as a means to an end. (That end is usually related to procreation or status). Could it simply be predicting or imitating typical human responses in a way that cuts through the bullshit?
Emerge, survive and proliferate?
This is fascinating and I have so many questions about the dynamics of such a game, especially if you could compile a lot of data over many iterations. What patterns would emerge and what would those patterns reveal about human psychology? For example, is there a common strategy or set of strategies people would eventually converge on or arrive at after enough time? Or what if it was played with groups? Such data could be an info hazard but it’s fun to think about. I’d love to play as gatekeeper if anyone is interested. I’m not very technical minded, I don’t know if that’d be a handicap or advantage.
There are a lot of solutions but they’re often too boring and not sensational enough for serious consideration. Solutions must be exciting and make the adopter look good, efficacy is secondary.
I would argue if skipping grades was normalized physical differences wouldn’t have a large impact on socialization (making friends, dating, etc.)
Part of what the question is asking is how do we know (decide?) the difference between performative and true existential threat.