The top comments seem mostly critical at the moment. This video was posted today and already has 1.2 million views (>100x the number of active EAs as of 2019!), so it might be useful to examine the reception from this video’s general audience. Some of the critique so far:
The video is titled “Is Civilization on the Brink of Collapse?”, but it doesn’t directly answer this question and instead focuses on the consequences of civilizational collapse and a road to recovery.
Comparisions are mainly made to ancient civilizations. They don’t bear much resemblance to modern society, which is more technologically developed and thus robust to risks such as pandemics.
Skepticism towards AI being an x-risk (AGI won’t be developed for a very long time and is difficult to build)
The video seems like a sponsored PR effort advancing WWOTF’s agenda.
The video was poorly researched:
The Bronze Age collapse was not mentioned, despite being a crucial civilizational collapse which regressed scientific and technological development.
The definition of “civilization” at the beginning of the video excludes societies which didn’t have hierarchies or abolished them.
Omission of some important extinction scenarios, like supervolcano eruptions or asteroid impacts.
The video is Eurocentric and doesn’t mention other cultures or empires.
The video is too optimistic/futuristic; it offers scientifically possible but implausible solutions for rebuilding civilization, and doesn’t demonstrate how to overcome social and political hurdles.
The top comments seem mostly critical at the moment. This video was posted today and already has 1.2 million views (>100x the number of active EAs as of 2019!), so it might be useful to examine the reception from this video’s general audience. Some of the critique so far:
The video is titled “Is Civilization on the Brink of Collapse?”, but it doesn’t directly answer this question and instead focuses on the consequences of civilizational collapse and a road to recovery.
Comparisions are mainly made to ancient civilizations. They don’t bear much resemblance to modern society, which is more technologically developed and thus robust to risks such as pandemics.
Skepticism towards AI being an x-risk (AGI won’t be developed for a very long time and is difficult to build)
The video seems like a sponsored PR effort advancing WWOTF’s agenda.
The video was poorly researched:
The Bronze Age collapse was not mentioned, despite being a crucial civilizational collapse which regressed scientific and technological development.
The definition of “civilization” at the beginning of the video excludes societies which didn’t have hierarchies or abolished them.
Omission of some important extinction scenarios, like supervolcano eruptions or asteroid impacts.
The video is Eurocentric and doesn’t mention other cultures or empires.
The video is too optimistic/futuristic; it offers scientifically possible but implausible solutions for rebuilding civilization, and doesn’t demonstrate how to overcome social and political hurdles.
This video and “The Last Human – A Glimpse Into The Far Future” place too much emphasis on hypothetical future people, which distracts from suffering in the present.