Yeah, I did not mean to suggest anything about Will’s support for buying small island nations. The point is just that when buying land (albeit coal mines, not Nauru) and building bunkers are mentioned in the same breath in a very public discussion at a very public EA event:
I think this makes it harder for the EA community to put as much ideological space between itself and “buy Nauru” as we might like to. Clearly “buy island nation” and “buy coal mines/build bunkers” are different, but I don’t know that they’re sufficiently different that I would say “wow, Gabe really went out on a limb in coming up with this; I doubt this idea was inspired by others he was exposed to through conversations with people in the EA community.”
This makes me think that more extreme versions of these ideas were being floated behind closed doors (/on Signal). If I’m right about this, then I suspect we’ll see more evidence of this during the trial, and I will happily eat my words in a few months if we don’t.
Maybe a more precise way of putting this:
If “buy coal mines/build bunkers” = A, and “buy Nauru” = E, then my view is that: 1) A and E aren’t that far apart (just separated by B, C, and D) and 2) I suspect B, C, and D were being discussed.
Yeah, I did not mean to suggest anything about Will’s support for buying small island nations. The point is just that when buying land (albeit coal mines, not Nauru) and building bunkers are mentioned in the same breath in a very public discussion at a very public EA event:
I think this makes it harder for the EA community to put as much ideological space between itself and “buy Nauru” as we might like to. Clearly “buy island nation” and “buy coal mines/build bunkers” are different, but I don’t know that they’re sufficiently different that I would say “wow, Gabe really went out on a limb in coming up with this; I doubt this idea was inspired by others he was exposed to through conversations with people in the EA community.”
This makes me think that more extreme versions of these ideas were being floated behind closed doors (/on Signal). If I’m right about this, then I suspect we’ll see more evidence of this during the trial, and I will happily eat my words in a few months if we don’t.
Maybe a more precise way of putting this:
If “buy coal mines/build bunkers” = A, and “buy Nauru” = E, then my view is that: 1) A and E aren’t that far apart (just separated by B, C, and D) and 2) I suspect B, C, and D were being discussed.