SWK—thanks for sharing this. Good to see Santos talking about this. I think his message was somewhat undermined by three factors, which you alluded to: (1) commencement speeches are usually optimistic, uplifting platitude-dumps written to be as inoffensive as possible, (2) the Doomsday Clock just doesn’t have much credibility or gravitas any more, since its meaning has been diluted from the original ‘global nuclear war’ focus to all sorts of other concerns, (3) mentioning climate change as if it’s an ‘existential risk’ either doesn’t understand what ‘existential risk’ means, or vastly over-estimates the likely severity of climate change.
Thanks for your comment, and I agree with your points. I definitely should have noted Santos’ unfortunate use of the Doomsday Clock to frame his speech. This was, in hindsight, a sure way undermine his message both for people familiar or unacquainted with x-risk ideas.
SWK—thanks for sharing this. Good to see Santos talking about this. I think his message was somewhat undermined by three factors, which you alluded to: (1) commencement speeches are usually optimistic, uplifting platitude-dumps written to be as inoffensive as possible, (2) the Doomsday Clock just doesn’t have much credibility or gravitas any more, since its meaning has been diluted from the original ‘global nuclear war’ focus to all sorts of other concerns, (3) mentioning climate change as if it’s an ‘existential risk’ either doesn’t understand what ‘existential risk’ means, or vastly over-estimates the likely severity of climate change.
Thanks for your comment, and I agree with your points. I definitely should have noted Santos’ unfortunate use of the Doomsday Clock to frame his speech. This was, in hindsight, a sure way undermine his message both for people familiar or unacquainted with x-risk ideas.