Thank you for writing this! I am strongly against authoritarianism, and I think liberalism is important for human welfare outside of its implications for existential risk. I appreciate that this post articulates in detail why we shouldn’t give up on liberalism even in the face of existential threats from emerging technologies. The point about global police states (even ostensibly benevolent ones) having instrumentally convergent goals is also insightful and I think it would resonate with many people here.
Thank you for reading! I definitely agree that liberalism has tons of other important qualities. I wanted to make an argument solely with the language of existential risk though for two reasons:
Thinking on existential risk tends to be totalizing, perhaps fairly. The humanistic values of liberalism are really hard to weigh up against all potential future value. Most people who think about this stuff would just dismiss this out of hand for that reason
Much else has been written on the other values of liberalism and I think that most EAs at least intuitively agree that liberalism is very valuable.
Thank you for writing this! I am strongly against authoritarianism, and I think liberalism is important for human welfare outside of its implications for existential risk. I appreciate that this post articulates in detail why we shouldn’t give up on liberalism even in the face of existential threats from emerging technologies. The point about global police states (even ostensibly benevolent ones) having instrumentally convergent goals is also insightful and I think it would resonate with many people here.
Thank you for reading! I definitely agree that liberalism has tons of other important qualities. I wanted to make an argument solely with the language of existential risk though for two reasons:
Thinking on existential risk tends to be totalizing, perhaps fairly. The humanistic values of liberalism are really hard to weigh up against all potential future value. Most people who think about this stuff would just dismiss this out of hand for that reason
Much else has been written on the other values of liberalism and I think that most EAs at least intuitively agree that liberalism is very valuable.