My guess is that people disagree with the notion that the novel is a significant reason for most people who take s-risks seriously. I too was a bit puzzled by that part, but I found it enlightening as a comment even if I disagreed with it.
My impression is that readers of the EA forum have, since 2022, become much more prone to downvoting stuff just because they disagree with it. LW seems to be slightly better at understanding that “karma” and “disagreement” are separate things, and that you should up-karma stuff if you personally benefited from reading it, and separately up-agree or down-agree depending on whether you think it’s right or wrong.
Maybe I’m wrong, but perhaps the forum could use a few reminders to let people know the purpose of these buttons. Like an opt-out confirmation popup with some guiding principles for when you should up or downvote each dimension.
I agree that it would be nice on EA Forum for people to stay disciplined about upvotes versus agree-votes.
It would also be very helpful if there was a norm of people disagree-voting offering, at least some of the time, explicit reasons for their disagreement—even if only brief comments.
My mention of the Banks novel wasn’t intended to be taken too literally as an explanation for why some people take S-risk seriously. (Maybe that was seen as dismissive or mocking, but it certainly wasn’t meant to be.) For me personally, Surface Detail was just the only scenario I’ve seen portrayed in fiction, so far, where there would be any sustainable rationale for AIs to impose long-term suffering on sentient beings.
My guess is that people disagree with the notion that the novel is a significant reason for most people who take s-risks seriously. I too was a bit puzzled by that part, but I found it enlightening as a comment even if I disagreed with it.
My impression is that readers of the EA forum have, since 2022, become much more prone to downvoting stuff just because they disagree with it. LW seems to be slightly better at understanding that “karma” and “disagreement” are separate things, and that you should up-karma stuff if you personally benefited from reading it, and separately up-agree or down-agree depending on whether you think it’s right or wrong.
Maybe I’m wrong, but perhaps the forum could use a few reminders to let people know the purpose of these buttons. Like an opt-out confirmation popup with some guiding principles for when you should up or downvote each dimension.
rime—thanks for your helpful reply.
I agree that it would be nice on EA Forum for people to stay disciplined about upvotes versus agree-votes.
It would also be very helpful if there was a norm of people disagree-voting offering, at least some of the time, explicit reasons for their disagreement—even if only brief comments.
My mention of the Banks novel wasn’t intended to be taken too literally as an explanation for why some people take S-risk seriously. (Maybe that was seen as dismissive or mocking, but it certainly wasn’t meant to be.) For me personally, Surface Detail was just the only scenario I’ve seen portrayed in fiction, so far, where there would be any sustainable rationale for AIs to impose long-term suffering on sentient beings.