Note that you can also think of many other topics people feel strongly about and how the balance of reason looks like e.g., feminist theory, monarchism & divine right of kings, anarcho-capitalist theory, Freudian psychology, Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism, intelligent design, etc.
Well, I don’t want to make the implication that everything that people believe in strongly is wrong. For example, in the case of Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism, community dynamics basically don’t matter in the face of overwhelming experimental verification.
Freudian psychology is another case which I think is interesting, in that it was pre-paradigmatic, and had both insights that have been incorporated into the mainstream (e.g., to analyze subconscious motivations) as well as some batshit insane stuff.
Now I see: my mathematician bias in action. For me maxwellian elctromagnetism means Maxwell (or Heaviside) equations. Of course, I have no idea about “physical interpretations” (either then or now). All physics I now come from “Physics for mathematicians” books.
This is an important point. The difficulty with AGI x-risk is that experimental verification isn’t really possible (short of catastrophic-but-not-existential warning shots, that the most doomy people think are unlikely). Can anyone steelman with any strongly held beliefs that are justified without resort to overwhelming empirical verification? Maybe certain moral beliefs like the Golden Rule? But what about risks? Is there precedent with non-empirically-verified commonly accepted belief in a risk?
Belief in “preventing nuclear war from producing widespread annihilation is important” seems reasonably widespread, and it is supported by empirical evidence that nuclear bombs are possible, even though the claim that nuclear war would be such that it would produce widespread annihilation hasn’t been verified. But of course you can see that such widespread annihilation would be possible, by bombing the most populous cities in order.
Yeah, I thought about nuclear risk, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem like good enough evidence for the possibility of widespread annihilation (or even Trinity for that matter). This would only be a good example if there was widespread appreciation for GCR potential from nuclear risk before any nuclear detonations. I don’t think there was? (Especially considering that there was only a few short years (1933 − 1945) from theory to practice with the nuclear chain reaction.)
Note that you can also think of many other topics people feel strongly about and how the balance of reason looks like e.g., feminist theory, monarchism & divine right of kings, anarcho-capitalist theory, Freudian psychology, Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism, intelligent design, etc.
Shakespeare authorship is another classic one. Oxfordians will usually know far more about Shakespeare than you or I do!
“Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism”
Is this a test of attention? Or there is something I miss?
Well, I don’t want to make the implication that everything that people believe in strongly is wrong. For example, in the case of Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism, community dynamics basically don’t matter in the face of overwhelming experimental verification.
Freudian psychology is another case which I think is interesting, in that it was pre-paradigmatic, and had both insights that have been incorporated into the mainstream (e.g., to analyze subconscious motivations) as well as some batshit insane stuff.
All the rest of the list is between “utterly wrong” and “quite controversial”, except for electromagnetism, that is “almost completely rigth”!
I don’t have a point I’m arriving at here, but here is a paragraph from a philosophy of science book I’m reading that might be interesting:
& in general the history of the theory of electromagnetism is fairly interesting.
Now I see: my mathematician bias in action. For me maxwellian elctromagnetism means Maxwell (or Heaviside) equations. Of course, I have no idea about “physical interpretations” (either then or now). All physics I now come from “Physics for mathematicians” books.
This is an important point. The difficulty with AGI x-risk is that experimental verification isn’t really possible (short of catastrophic-but-not-existential warning shots, that the most doomy people think are unlikely). Can anyone steelman with any strongly held beliefs that are justified without resort to overwhelming empirical verification? Maybe certain moral beliefs like the Golden Rule? But what about risks? Is there precedent with non-empirically-verified commonly accepted belief in a risk?
Belief in “preventing nuclear war from producing widespread annihilation is important” seems reasonably widespread, and it is supported by empirical evidence that nuclear bombs are possible, even though the claim that nuclear war would be such that it would produce widespread annihilation hasn’t been verified. But of course you can see that such widespread annihilation would be possible, by bombing the most populous cities in order.
Yeah, I thought about nuclear risk, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem like good enough evidence for the possibility of widespread annihilation (or even Trinity for that matter). This would only be a good example if there was widespread appreciation for GCR potential from nuclear risk before any nuclear detonations. I don’t think there was? (Especially considering that there was only a few short years (1933 − 1945) from theory to practice with the nuclear chain reaction.)